TODAY IN CONGRESS (TIC):
Your One Stop Shop For Learning What Our Congress Critters Are Up To!
Today’s Headlines:
DAY 44 Since the House Passed the HEROES Bill and Not A Peep From Mitch!
NOTE TO ALL — The Fourth of July Holiday is almost upon us and Congress is out until July 17 at the earliest. For me, I’m hitting the vacation road in my TARDIS (i.e. Travel Trailer) and heading to places where internet may be spotty at best. So I am temporarily discontinuing my regular TIC posts until Congress returns. However, if something earth shattering happens and I can find reliable internet service, I may do a sporadic post or two. But for now, I will leave you with this wrap up.
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.
Today’s Events:
House —
10:00 am — House Session (Members will debate H.R. 1425, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act, and COVID-19 Housing Relief.)
10:15 am — House Oversight & Reform Subcommittee Hearing on Violence Against Protesters and Journalists (The House Oversight & Reform Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties holds a virtual hearing on violence against protesters and journalists in the wake of the death of George Floyd.)
12:02 pm — House Natural Resources Committe Hearing on Incident with U.S. Park Police and Protesters (The House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing examining the incident between U.S. Park Police and protesters near the White House at Lafayette Square.)
Senate —
3:00 pm — Senate Session (The Senate resumes work on the $740.5 billion 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense programs and policy bill.)
See Comments below regarding today’s C-Span TV schedule.
Thursday & Friday Votes:
House —
1. House Resolution 7120 (H.R. 7120) — Vote on Passage of H.R.7120 - George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 (This bill addresses a wide range of policies and issues regarding policing practices and law enforcement accountability. It includes measures to increase accountability for law enforcement misconduct, to enhance transparency and data collection, and to eliminate discriminatory policing practices.
The bill facilitates federal enforcement of constitutional violations (e.g., excessive use of force) by state and local law enforcement. Among other things, it does the following:
- lowers the criminal intent standard—from willful to knowing or reckless—to convict a law enforcement officer for misconduct in a federal prosecution,
- limits qualified immunity as a defense to liability in a private civil action against a law enforcement officer or state correctional officer, and
- authorizes the Department of Justice to issue subpoenas in investigations of police departments for a pattern or practice of discrimination.
The bill also creates a national registry—the National Police Misconduct Registry—to compile data on complaints and records of police misconduct.
It establishes a framework to prohibit racial profiling at the federal, state, and local levels.
The bill establishes new requirements for law enforcement officers and agencies, including to report data on use-of-force incidents, to obtain training on implicit bias and racial profiling, and to wear body cameras.) (You can read the Full Text of the Bill HERE.)
Democrats- 233 Yes 0 No 0 Present 0 Not Voting
Republicans- 3 Yes 180 No 0 Present 14 Not Voting
Independents - 0 Yes 1 No 0 Present 0 Not Voting
Totals- 236 Yes 181 No 0 Present 14 Not Voting
PASSED
Voting Details HERE.
2. House Joint Resolution 76 (H.J.Res. 76) — Vote on Veto Override of H.J.Res.76 - Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to "Borrower Defense Institutional Accountability". (This joint resolution nullifies a rule issued by the Department of Education (ED) on September 23, 2019. The rule revised the process for a student loan borrower to obtain a discharge from a student loan if an institution of education misrepresented a material fact. Among other requirements, the 2019 rule requires each borrower to apply to ED for a defense to repayment. However, under the previous 2016 rule, an application could be submitted on behalf of an entire group (e.g., veterans).)
Democrats- 232 Yes 0 No 0 Present 0 Not Voting
Republicans- 6 Yes 172 No 0 Present 19 Not Voting
Independents- 0 Yes 1 No 0 Present 0 Not Voting
Totals- 238 Yes 173 No 0 Present 19 Not Voting
FAILED (290 Votes Needed (2/3’s Majority To Override)
Voting Details HERE.
3. House Resolution 51 (H.R. 51) — Vote on Passage of H.R.51 - Washington, D.C. Admission Act. (This bill provides for admission into the United States of the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, composed of most of the territory of the District of Columbia. The commonwealth shall be admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the other states.
The Mayor of the District of Columbia shall issue a proclamation for the first elections to Congress of two Senators and one Representative of the commonwealth.
The bill applies current District laws to the commonwealth and continues pending judicial proceedings.
The commonwealth (1) shall consist of all District territory, with specified exclusions for federal buildings and monuments, including the principal federal monuments, the White House, the Capitol Building, the U.S. Supreme Court Building, and the federal executive, legislative, and judicial office buildings located adjacent to the Mall and the Capitol Building; and (2) may not impose taxes on federal property except as Congress permits.
The bill maintains (1) the District as the seat of the federal government, and (2) the federal government's authority over military lands and specified other property.
The bill provides for expedited consideration of a joint resolution repealing the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the appointment of electors of the President and Vice President.)
Democrats- 232 Yes 1 No 0 Present 0 Not Voting
Republicans- 0 Yes 178 No 0 Present 19 Not Voting
Independents- 0 Yes 1 No 0 Present 0 Not Voting
Totals- 232 Yes 180 No 0 Present 19 Not Voting
PASSED
Voting Details HERE.
Senate — Ho Significant Votes.
Comments:
Looking Back — Police Reform & COVID-19 Legislation (A RANT) — How many times have you seen an MSM Headline that reads: “Congress Fails To Pass XYZ” or “Congressional Democrats & Republicans Fail To Agree On XYZ” (Respond in Comments if you like). I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard it A LOT! Most recently I have heard it expressed as “Congress Fails To Pass COVID-19 Aid Legislation” and “Congressional Democrats & Republicans Fail To Agree On Police Reform Legislation”. Every time I hear or see such MSM Headlines I have to scream BULLSHIT! It totally misrepresents the situation as being “both sides are to blame. Once again, BULLSHIT! The reality is the Democratic House passed the HEROES Act to provide much needed COVID-related medical and economic relief and the GOP Senate has shelved it, and the House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing and the GOP Senate refuses to take it up. Now to be fair, the GOP does not see eye to eye with Democrats on either piece of legislation. But while the Democrats have openly made clear that they are willing to negotiate both Bills, while the GOP prefers to just let them die. However, what’s the most INFURIATING is the MSM tendency to portray them in terms of “Both-side-er-isms” (i.e., both sides are to blame), when clearly one side, the Republican side, is to blame. All I ask is that the MSM present the DAMN Facts!
Looking Forward — Watch Bounty-Gate — As reported in this AlyoshaKaramazov's Diary, this scandal my have legs. I say that because it’s not getting the usual “poo-poo, defend Trump no matter what” treatment by Republicans. For example, here’s a tweet from Lindsey Graham:
Imperative Congress get to the bottom of recent media reports that Russian GRU units in Afghanistan have offered to pay the Taliban to kill American soldiers with the goal of pushing America out of the region.
But what’s even more amazing is this tweet from non-other than Liz Cheney (R-WY-AL) #2 Republican in the House:
If reporting about Russian bounties on US forces is true, the White House must explain: 1. Why weren’t the president or vice president briefed? Was the info in the PDB? 2. Who did know and when? 3. What has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin accountable?
This is as close to a “What did the President know and when”, Howard Baker quote from a staunch Republican that we have seen so far. Maybe it’s because choosing Trump & Russia over our own Service Men and Women is just a Bridge Too Far for Conservative Republicans. Or maybe it’s just because Republicans are watching the Polls and finally see Trump as a possible future toxic liability to their political futures. Regardless of the reasons, Cheney’s statement is an open invitation for House Democrats to open a comprehensive investigation of Bounty-Gate ASAP. where it will go is anybody’s guess, and I refuse to speculate at the very early stages of this huge scandal. But with at least some Republicans supporting it, it won’t be like the past partisan investigations. Leading me to agree with AlyoshaKaramazov, that this one has legs. Now, per Laura Clawson, Pelosi insisting on Full House Briefing on BountyGate.
Today’s C-Span TV Picks — I would recommend either the House Debate on H.R. 1425, Changes to the ACA or the Hearing on violence against protesters, if either is still going on. Due to the late post on my part, a lot of the C-Span TV viewing may have already happened. Sorry about that!
Thursday & Friday Votes — The only significant votes last week took place in the House. Let’s take them one at a time.
George Floyd Justice in Policing Act — By now you all know the only REAL Police Reform Bill passed the House last week almost along Party lines, with 3 brave Republican exceptions (Fitzpatrick, Hurd (TX) & Upton). Most Congressional watchers have deemed this Bill and Police Reform in general as going nowhere on the National level, as MoscowMitch won’t even look at the Bill ans has refused to enter into any type of negotiations with Democrats on the Senate’s version. Mitch is hoping this goes the way of so many pieces of Gun Safety legislation after a mass shooting and dies a quiet death. But on the bright side of things, it looks like this could go badly for the Senate GOP, as Pelosi once again boxes them in. She has left them with two bad choices, either negotiate and pass a decent and truly Bipartisan Police Reform Bill before the Fall recess or face the wrath of energized black and suburban white voters in November. Either way they lose.
2016 Rule On Education Loans Tossed Out By Trump Administration — Apparently back in 2019, Betsy DeVos threw out a 2016 Obama Era Rule that allowed groups to collectively file for Student Loan Relief in cases where the lender misrepresented facts in the loan agreement. Meaning that individuals would now have to file such claims on their own, at presumably considerable expense. So after Trump Vetoed a Congressional Resolution to throw out the DeVos Rule and re-institute the 2016 Rule, all but 6 Republicans decided to back Trump, DeVos and the Big Student Loan industry in this vet override attempt instead of the poor former students struggling under mountains of student loan debt. NICE!
D.C. Statehood — While passing legislation on D.C. Statehood in the House has drawn significant applause from the folks on our side, in reality it is a purely a symbolic move since there is no way this Bill will ever pass this Senate, or any Senate for that matter where the Republicans hold 41 or more seats to sustain a Filibuster. I have no debate on the merits of such legislation, after-all our Country was founded on the principle of “no taxation without representation”. However, to be perfectly honest, I don’t see the political benefit in it, other than to excite the D.C. residents who are already overwhelmingly on our side.
COMMITTEE ACTIVITY:
Introduction:
NOTE #s1 — 4: To keep this diary as short as possible while still providing a means for new readers to obtain a chronological history on each Committee Activity topic/event below, I have squirreled away the Background information on these topics in other previously posted diaries. So each topic’s Background section below will include links to my September 26, 2019 Diary for Background prior to November 22, my November 22, 2019, 2019 Diary for Background between November 22, 2019 and January 30, 2020, and my January 30, 2020 Diary for Background from January 30, 2020 until today. This and other regular TIC diaries will only include Recent Developments (stuff that happened the day before) and New Developments on each Committee topic/event. Also, I will discontinue posting Committee topics/events that have been inactive for weeks, but their histories will remain in the Background Diaries. If something new happens on these discontinued topics/events, I will bring them back from the dead and post it in the regular TIC.
Now on with the show. (New and Important stuff in bold)
Senate Judiciary Committee — Police Reform Legislation —
Background — See my June 8, 18 & 23 TICs.
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None.
House Judiciary Committee Barr Subpoena for Mueller Grand Jury Materials —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Nov. 22 to Jan. 30 CLICK HERE. Post Jan 30 CLICK HERE. Also, see my May 11 , 19, 20 & June 5 TICs.
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None.
House Judiciary Committee McGahn Subpoena —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Nov. 22 to Jan. 30 CLICK HERE. Post Jan 30 CLICK HERE. Also, see my May 5 TIC for details on the April 28 DC Circuit Court (virtual) Hearing in this case.
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None, awaiting Court Ruling.
House Judiciary & Intelligence Committee News —
NOTE #1: This used to be the “House Intelligence Committee’s Whistleblower Investigation”. Then it was titled the “House Intelligence, & Judiciary Committees’ Impeachment Investigation”. Then it was titled the “House & Senate Impeachment Proceedings.” But since Trump’s first impeachment is over, I have changed the heading again.
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Nov. 22 to Jan. 30 CLICK HERE. Post Jan 30 CLICK HERE. Also, see my May 11 TIC, June 5, 8, 11 & 15 TICs.
House Judiciary Committee Barr Whistleblowers (New) —
Background — See my June 24 & 25 TICs.
Recent Developments — Wednesday’s Hearing with the Barr Whistleblowers was chuck full of Barr INjustices as expected. According to this Report from NPR:
Prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky, who has worked at the department since 2014, told the committee that top leadership of the Justice Department leaned on the U.S. Attorney's Office for Washington, D.C., to go easy on Trump's friend Roger Stone.
"What I saw was that Roger Stone was being treated differently from every other defendant. ... This leniency was happening because of Stone's relationship with the president," Zelinsky said.
The other witness was John W. Elias, who has been a career lawyer at the Justice Department for presidents of both political parties.
Elias described what he called alleged abuse of power by the department in service of the administration's political ends — acts serious enough to prompt him to report them to the inspector general and now, to Congress.
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer also testified.
In the Category of Republicans behaving Badly (not surprised):
The hearing was often shrill. Members squabbled over the rules of the proceeding. When one witnesses' testimony ran over a 5-minute limit, Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas began making a tapping sound on his desk. Democrats complained they couldn't hear what was being said.
Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia asked Nadler about ordering the sergeant-at-arms to remove Gohmert. The chairman didn't pursue that idea and recognized the next witness, but the acrimonious tone for the session continued.
IMO, Nadler should have tossed Gohmert out on his A$$. Not doing so only encourages more bad Republican behavior in the future as they perceive Nadler as being weak which, truthfully, may be the correct perception.
UPDATE: Per this Kerry Kubic Tweet:
The Attorney General has accepted an invitation to appear before the House Judiciary Committee for a general oversight hearing on July 28th.
Whether Barr will actually show or not is another question. He may have just accepted the invitation to get Nadler off his back. On the other hand, he may show since the scheduled date is just before Congress’s August recess, meaning that it is unlikely the House will be able to take any action against him or DoJ (e.g., defunding DoJ) until September if at all.
New Developments — None.
House Judiciary & Intelligence Committee Flynn Subpoena —
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Nov. 22 to Jan. 30 CLICK HERE. Post Jan 30 CLICK HERE. Also, see my May 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 19, 20, 27, June 3, 5, 8, 11, 15, 18 & 23 TICs.
Recent Developments — In the Category of Bad News you already know about, we have this from CNN:
A divided federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered the dismissal of the case against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, likely concluding a long-running court fight that had taken on greater meaning in political debates about the Russia investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and about the checks and balances the judiciary has on the executive branch.
Despite Flynn twice pleading guilty for lying to the FBI about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador
Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition, the Justice Department moved last month to dismiss the case against him. Trial judge Emmet Sullivan of the DC District did not immediately act, instead saying
he wanted to weigh the department's arguments into at least July.
If unchallenged with further appeals, the appeals court's ruling exonerates Flynn after he
sought to change his plea and claimed innocence.
However, in a possible encouraging news from our own
Mark Sumner:
But no matter how many champagne corks popped on the right, the case is not over. Because on Wednesday evening, Judge Sullivan did not follow the order to dismiss the Flynn case. Instead, Sullivan issued a stay of the proceedings. It seems likely that now Sullivan will file a petition that the entire appeals court rehear the case en banc. The outcome of that hearing genuinely will decide whether or not Michael Flynn ever sees the consequences of his admitted crime—or for any of the crimes he committed but got out of in his original deal with the DOJ.
Stay Tuned! This is not over yet. Remember, Sullivan is the Judge who argued for Flynn to be charged with TREASON, so I don’t see him backing off in the face of this obvious politically motivated decision.
New Developments — None.
House Committees Subpoenas/Requests for Trump Banking/Financial Records & Taxes:
Background — Pre-Nov. 22 CLICK HERE. Nov. 22 to Jan. 30 CLICK HERE. Post Jan 30 CLICK HERE. Also, see my May 11 , 12 , 13 & 14 TICs.
NOTE: In previous TICs, there were 3 separate topic threads (1. Deutsche/Capital One Bank Subpoenas, 2. Mazars’ Subpoena, and 3. Trump Taxes) covering 5 different court cases. Since they are all dealing with the same general topic (Trump’s hidden financial history) and were starting to get intertwined in my brain, I have rolled them all under the single header above to hopefully make things less confusing.
Also, to further help keep things organized, below are the five (5) ongoing court cases dealing with Trump’s Banking/Financial Records and tax returns.
1. Trump vs. Deutsche Bank and Capital One — Case brought by Trump against the the two banks in an effort to block a subpoena from the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees for the Trump Organization’s banking records, including tax returns.
2. Trump vs. Mazars (Congressional Case) — Congressional Mazar’s case brought by Trump against Mazars (the Trump Organization’s former Accounting Firm) in an effort to block a subpoena from the House Oversight and Reform Committee for the Trump Organization’s financial records, including tax returns.
3. Trump vs. Mazars (Criminal Case) — Case brought by Trump against against Mazars (the Trump Organization’s former Accounting Firm) in an effort to block a subpoena from the Manhattan DA for Trump’s tax returns. The DA has subpoenaed these takes returns in conjunction with his criminal investigation of Trump’s hush money pay off to Stormy Daniels.
4. Congress vs. the IRS & Treasury Department (Trump’s Federal Tax Returns) — This case is a lawsuit brought by the House Ways & Means Committee against the IRS and Treasury Department for their failure to turn over Trump’s tax returns upon the Committee’s request as required BY LAW.
5. Trump vs. NYS Tax Department (Trump’s State Tax Returns) — This case is a lawsuit brought by Trump to block NYS from turning over his State tax returns to Congress.
I will use these case #s below to help keep things organized.
Recent Developments — None.
New Developments — None, awaiting SCOTUS rulings.
THAT’S IT FOR TODAY! Have a Safe and Happy July 4th and Stay Healthy All!