It’s a big day in Congress, with the whole of government relying on the Senate to get a funding bill passed by Friday, midnight so it doesn’t shut down. They all have an eye on the massive destruction of Hurricane Ian, which adds even more urgency to getting the funding bill—which includes billions more in natural disaster response funding—out the door. That’s weighty stuff, but the other attention-grabber for Thursday is the virtual testimony of Ginni Thomas in the House Jan. 6 committee.
After Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) dropped his hugely unpopular rider to the bill, getting government funding done is just a matter of time and time in the Senate is everything. The urgency of the hurricane could speed things along, but there’s always going to be a Rand Paul or Ted Cruz who doesn’t mind being universally reviled do try some mischief.
Wednesday night, they advanced the funding bill to the floor, where procedure dictates that they have 30 hours of “debate” (long expanses of classical music on C-SPAN2 while the camera shows an empty chamber) for the bill to ripen. If they want to get it done Thursday so they can all take Friday off, they need an agreement from all 100 senators to set aside the clock. There might be some Republican agitation and delay to get votes for their amendments, but there also might not be, because they always want to leave town on Thursday.
Thursday, Sep 29, 2022 · 6:42:04 PM +00:00
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Joan McCarter
And the government will be funded after tomorrow. It passed 75-25 in the Senate. The House might not take it up until Friday, but since the House has proxy voting because of the COVID-19 pandemic, members won’t actually have to stick around for Friday. They’re out until after the election; it’s not clear yet if the Senate will come back anytime in October—they are scheduled to have a couple of weeks in D.C.
The House is ready to rubber-stamp it and get it to President Joe Biden, relieved that there won’t be a fight over Manchin’s bill this time around. “Free at last! … the permitting is gone,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said Wednesday, speaking for all House Democrats. “I said that we’re not going to shut the government down, and we’re not.”
While the House waits for the bill, they’re doing some housekeeping on lower priority bills. But the real action will be in the Jan. 6 committee, where Ginni Thomas—spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—will appear. She’s going to be interviewed about her role in the insurrection.
Thomas was in close contact with Trump attorney John Eastman after the November election and before the insurrection. The committee has those emails, and it also has the emails Thomas sent to Arizona and Wisconsin lawmakers, urging them to overturn Biden’s election.
She was also in regular contact with Trump’s chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, including a Nov. 6, 2020, text when she told Meadows, “Do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.” As Mark Sumner wrote, “her access to the court, her connections with Eastman, her involvement in the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign, and her ability to leverage Clarence Thomas’ position to gain access to anyone in Washington makes her a key figure in the scheme.”
Whether she actually will be forthcoming with information about any of that—including whether she plotted any of this with her husband—is the big question. We’ll find out soon enough.
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