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scott perry
The Second US Civil War Has Already Begun
This time, the rebels are using their power inside the government and their influence through social media to subvert fundamental democratic institutions.
Jun 14, 2024
For those who are concerned that America’s increasing political polarization could lead to another Civil War, I have some disheartening news: The Second Civil War is already underway.
It’s not a clash of opposing armies on a traditional battlefield. The weapons are not bombs, rifles, guns, or semi-automatic firearms. Rather, the rebels are using their power inside the government and their influence through social media to subvert fundamental democratic institutions.
Devote the time it takes to understand the stakes in the November 5, 2024 election and then cast a vote to save America.
Wrapping themselves in the American flag and the false rhetoric of freedom, morality, and a return to “godliness,” they’re targeting the rule of law itself. Some, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, admit brazenly that they are pursuing personal agendas aimed at transforming the country into a quasi-theocracy.
And they’re conducting the war along multiple fronts.
Front 1: Poisoning the Body Politic
Even before Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, he rallied his followers with rants about the need for “vengeance” against his enemies who have “rigged” every American institution against him. “Enemies” means anyone who disagrees with him or defends the foundations of our democracy, including free and fair elections, the civil and criminal justice systems that have held him accountable, and the rule of law itself.
Trump’s agenda is not the pursuit of the country’s best interests. His sole focus is whatever is best for Donald Trump. If a scorched-earth strategy to obliterate the Constitution will allow him to avoid accountability—and prison—so be it.
One-by-one, his followers—virtually the entire Republican party—have fallen into line. Rather than defend the rule of law, they parrot his lies.
Front 2: Jordan’s ‘Weaponization’ Subcommittee
Along another front, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and his “weaponization” subcommittee in the House professed for more than a year to be investigating the Biden administration’s wrongdoing. The effort was supposed to provide the basis for impeaching President Joe Biden. After fruitless hearings that became another forum for frivolous conspiracy theories, his committee found nothing.
So now Jordan has asked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo to explain the decision to prosecute Trump. The answer is that a jury of Trump’s peers concluded unanimously that prosecution was appropriate because Trump had broken the law. But harassing state prosecutors is Jordan’s latest gasp to breathe new life into his moribund investigations.
Front 3: Mobilizing GOP Investigators and Prosecutors
On May 31, Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News, “Is every House committee controlled by Republicans using its subpoena power in every way it needs to right now? Is every Republican DA starting every investigation they need to right now? Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe with Marxism and beat these communists.”
Likewise, Trump’s former chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, gave Republicans their marching orders: “There are dozens of ambitious backbencher state attorneys general and district attorneys who need to ‘seize the day’ and own this moment in history.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is on Trump’s short list of vice presidential prospects, tweeted that it was time for Republicans to “fight fire with fire.”
Another close Trump associate, Mike Davis, is a former top Senate Judiciary Committee attorney. He offered his fellow Republicans this advice: “The Republican attorneys general in Georgia and Florida and the county attorney in Maricopa County, Ariz., need to open investigations” into the prosecutors and investigators pursuing the indictments of Mr. Trump and his allies. “Then on Day 1, when he wins, President Trump needs to open a criminal civil rights investigation.”
Front 4: Mobilizing GOP Members of Congress
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that the U.S. Supreme Court should “step in,” overturn Trump’s conviction, and grant him immunity from prosecution. That’s nonsensical, but other Johnson actions are deadly serious.
At the behest of Trump, he appointed two of Trump’s lackeys—former Freedom Caucus chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Trump’s former White House physician, Ronny Jackson (R-Texas)—to the House Intelligence Committee, one of Congress’ most sensitive committees. It oversees the entire U.S. intelligence community—the CIA; FBI; National Security Agency; the intelligence activities of the Justice, State, and Treasury Departments; and the intelligence activities of the armed forces. The appointments stunned even some of Johnson’s fellow Republicans.
Perry was a central figure in efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss. He was among at least 11 Republican members of Congress involved in discussions with Trump administration officials about reversing the results, including plans to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to throw out electoral votes from states that Biden won. Shortly before the January 6 attack, he also endorsed the idea of encouraging supporters to march to the Capitol. The FBI seized his phone, and a judge ordered him to turn over cellphone records and disclose thousands of documents to government investigators.
As for Jackson, the Pentagon demoted him amid allegations that he mistreated subordinates, sexually harassed a woman, and drank and took sleeping pills while serving as the White House physician. But Trump then endorsed him as a congressional candidate, and he won.
Jackson told the pro-Trump network Newsmax, “President Biden should just be ready because on January 20 of next year when he’s former President Joe Biden, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander… I am going to encourage all of my colleagues and everybody that I have any influence over as a member of Congress to aggressively go after the president and his entire family, his entire crime family, for all of the misdeeds that are out there right now related to this family.”
After years of futile searching, Jordan’s subcommittee found no evidence of any such “misdeeds.”
Immediately after Johnson announced the appointments of Perry and Jackson, another fierce Trump loyalist, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), tweeted his approval to placing them on one of Congress’ most sensitive national security committees:
Congrats to @RepRonnyJackson & @RepScottPerry on these very significant appointments. President Trump now has MAJOR REINFORCEMENTS for his plan to obliterate the Deep State. This is now the most Pro-Trump intel committee we have ever had. By far.
Front 5: Obstructing the Senate
Republican Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently opened another front in the Second Civil War: obstruction. After the 2020 election, Lee had promoted false conspiracy theories and fake elector schemes to overturn the results and keep Trump in power. He backed off that position, but has now retaliated for Trump’s later conviction. He tweeted that that the Trump trial showed the White House had made “a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways,” even though the trial in New York was a state case with no connection to the Biden administration.
Now Lee leads a group of far-right Senate Republicans trying to block all White House nominees and Democratic legislation. As of noon on June 5, Lee and 12 others had signed a pledge to follow his lead. Among the signatories are two senators on Trump’s short list of vice presidential candidates: Rubio and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio).
Are We Worthy of Our Legacy?
On June 6, 2024, the free world celebrated the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion—a crucial moment leading to Allied victory in World War II. In the four-year fight (1941-1945) to save democracy, more than 400,000 Americans lost their lives. History is now asking their successors—all of us—to sacrifice much less in return for much more: Devote the time it takes to understand the stakes in the November 5, 2024 election and then cast a vote to save America.
The battle has been joined. The Second Civil War has begun. Ignoring reality will not change it. But complacency will result in tragedy from which the nation—and the world—will not soon recover.
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Call on US Leaders to Declare a Climate Emergency
As the nation bakes, it is imperative that President Joe Biden take this action to mobilize powers, resources, and tools not currently available to him that could challenge Republican obstruction.
Jul 24, 2023
Is Phoenix Ameria’s first unlivable city? Will this be the year America and the world wakes up?
CBS News is reporting that people in Phoenix are rationing their air conditioning; a British climatologist has declared it the developed world’s first “uninhabitable city without air conditioning.”
In large parts of the United States this summer, climate change-driven heat domes are making pavement so hot that when people pass out and come in contact with it they end up in the hospital with second- and third-degree burns. Multiple hospitals report that their burn units are near capacity.
Dr. Kevin Foster, the director of the Arizona Burn Center, told the CBC:
“We are seeing lots of patients who are falling down onto the concrete, pavement, asphalt, and suffering really, really deep burns as a result of that.” He added that this frequency and severity of burns is “twice the normal that we typically see.”
NBC news reported:
“The burns typically occur when people fall or pass out on sun-scorched pavement and other hot surfaces. During intense heatwaves, as has been unfolding across the Southwest, even being in contact with these surfaces for short periods of time can do serious damage, said Dr. Kara Geren, an emergency medicine physician at Valleywise Health in Phoenix.
“‘The burns can be very severe and disfiguring to the point where you have to have what’s called a skin graft, where they take skin from other parts of your body and kind of cover it up,’ she said.”
In 2021, 40% of Americans lived in a county severely impacted by our current climate emergency, and over 600 Americans died from climate-related causes. In 2022, climate change-related weather disasters cost the United States over $165 billion, according to NOAA.
This year will be the worst in human history, as El Niño drives a massive summer heatwave all across the Northern Hemisphere. The United Nations estimates that climate-related deaths will exceed cancer deaths in our children’s lifetimes. We stand on the precipice of a disaster unlike any that humanity has ever encountered.
The United Nations estimates that climate-related deaths will exceed cancer deaths in our children’s lifetimes. We stand on the precipice of a disaster unlike any that humanity has ever encountered.
And a small group of fossil fuel billionaires and coal barons are getting fabulously rich from humanity’s misery while actively working to block solutions. They’re using small parts of that revenue, with the blessing of five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, to pay off Republican politicians (and a handful of Democrats) to block any efforts to solve this crisis.
Which makes it imperative that President Joe Biden declare a climate emergency to mobilize powers, resources, and tools not currently available to him that could challenge their obstruction. These include the National Emergencies Act, the Defense Production Act, and the Robert T Stafford Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.
In 2019, the Center for Biological Diversity published a legal analysis summarizing the powers available to the president were he to declare a climate emergency. They include:
— Ban new fossil fuel leasing.
— Ban new fracking permits.
— Establish a plan to phase out fossil fuel production.
— Reallocate hundreds of billions of dollars currently subsidizing fossil fuel production toward the deployment of green energy.
— Cap domestic fossil fuel emissions.
— End the export of crude oil, coal, and refined fossil fuel products.
They further suggest that the president veto any legislation that provides immunity from lawsuits to the fossil fuel industry (the GOP is working on this), and begin a comprehensive and systematic investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s cover-up of science they’ve known and concealed for decades about the planet-destroying consequences of their products.
When America entered World War II, we shifted large portions of America’s industrial infrastructure toward the production of war material. Factories that once made cars began to manufacture tanks and airplanes; industrial facilities producing clothing or nylon stockings turned out millions of uniforms and parachutes. Food, fuel, and even tires were rationed to provide for the war effort.
This was largely done by President Franklin D. Roosevelt using his wartime emergency powers, and, the Center for Biological Diversity argues, using peacetime emergency powers today President Biden could put America on a similarly consequential course to be free of most fossil fuel pollution within a decade.
Not only would this have a major impact on climate change because America is one of the planet’s two largest polluters, but it would also set an example for the world to follow.
President Biden considered declaring such an emergency last year, but stepped back from it. As Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement told Bloomberg:
“New York City looks like it’s on fire, kids are choking on dirty air, and the AQI is a serious health threat equivalent to breathing in smoke from cigarettes. We are in a climate emergency, and it’s absurd that our government isn’t acting like it.”
Republicans are fully aware of this potential, which is why they just introduced legislation to block President Biden from declaring just such an emergency.
Cynically, they’ve named their bill the Real Emergencies Act. (You’ll recall that just last week Republican Congressman Scott Perry called climate change a “grift.”)
As Julia Rock notes at The Lever:
“The Real Emergencies Act’s seven sponsors in the Senate received a combined $3.1 million in contributions from fossil fuel industry executives and political action committees (PACs) over the 2017-2022 cycle, according to data from OpenSecrets. The bill’s 19 House sponsors raked in $1.7 million from fossil fuel executives and PACs during the 2021-2022 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.”
One of the great tragedies of Clarence Thomas casting the deciding vote in Citizens United is that today the cost of bribing politicians represents only a tiny fraction of the profits industry can receive when those politicians do what they are asked.
Invest a few million dollars, make hundreds of billions. The fossil fuel barons succeeded in buying so much of the GOP that it’s almost impossible to find any Republican elected official who will even acknowledge climate change, much less is willing to do anything serious about it.
With Democratic control of the Senate intact, however, this corrupt attempt by these Republicans (the Real Emergencies Act) to prevent President Biden from saving the lives of Americans will not become law.
But just stopping Republican obstruction isn’t enough: We need real and consequential action now.
This past week over 100 million Americans were subjected to deadly levels of heat, and, because warmer air holds more moisture and more energy, the storms and floods unleashed on America have been unprecedented in both their frequency, volume, and violence.
And it’s going to get worse. A lot worse.
This truly is a climate emergency, and every day that goes by without significant action further endangers the future of almost all life on Earth, including us.
Reach out to your elected officials and ask them to demand that President Biden declare a climate emergency and take action now.
The bought-and-paid-for Republican shills for the fossil fuel industry in Congress will react with hysterical squeals and threats of congressional action. Their threats, however, are hollow. Now is the time for action.
As Senator Jeff Merkley told The Washington Post:
“This is a planetary emergency, and the president should declare an emergency. It is the biggest issue facing humankind. We are on a trajectory for a massive increase in climate chaos, affecting us in every possible way.”
One of the best ways to lobby the president is through Democratic members of the House and Senate. The message to President Biden has to be: “You have the power to do this: You must use it.”
The number for the congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121. Most members of Congress also allow constituents to email them through their websites, which you can easily find with a quick web search.
Take a few minutes today and make the call. The fate of our planet, our fellow humans, and future generations is hanging in the balance.
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'It's About Hurting the Poor': GOP Ramps Up Cruel Push for Work Requirements
"The legislators that want new work requirements for food stamps and Medicaid are the same ones working to eliminate the estate tax so that billionaire heirs never have to work a day in their lives."
Apr 12, 2023
Led by Rep. Matt Gaetz and other far-right members of the House GOP, Republican lawmakers are intensifying their push to establish new work requirements for millions of people who receive Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance, an effort that progressives slammed as a cruel attack on the poor.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have rallied around work requirements as a key demand as they use the ongoing debt ceiling standoff as leverage to pursue steep spending cuts and other policy changes.
"The debate in some ways resembles the Republican-led campaign against so-called welfare queens in the 1990s, when a politically resurgent GOP—then under the leadership of House Speaker Newt Gingrich—secured a dramatic restructuring of the government's social safety net," the Post noted. "The resulting overhaul, enacted by President Bill Clinton, slashed cash benefits for millions of Americans in ways that GOP leaders now cite as a model."
In a February letter to President Joe Biden, Gaetz (R-Fla.) and four other House Republicans favorably cited the 1996 welfare reform law—which doubled extreme poverty—as an example of bipartisan cooperation that should be replicated to avert a catastrophic debt default.
During a press conference last month, Gaetz cast his call for tougher work requirements as an attempt to extract a "broader contribution" from "couch potatoes," which is often how Republicans demean people who receive federal food aid and other benefits—even though most who get such assistance work.
"The legislators that want new work requirements for food stamps and Medicaid are the same ones working to eliminate the estate tax so that billionaire heirs never have to work a day in their lives," the Patriotic Millionaires, a group that supports tax hikes on the rich, tweeted Tuesday. "It's not about work, it's about hurting the poor."
A recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that legislation introduced by Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) would strip Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from more than 10 million people, including 4 million children.
Research has repeatedly shown that SNAP work requirements, which add significant complexity and administrative burdens to the process of obtaining benefits, aren't effective at boosting employment.
"SNAP recipients who can work, do work," Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said Tuesday. "Yet they do not earn enough to escape poverty. Taking away SNAP doesn't help anyone find work, it just makes them hungry and ensures the cycle of poverty continues."
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) echoed his colleague, writing on Twitter that "adding draconian hurdles to receive food assistance and benefits makes it harder for people to get back on their feet, not easier."
"The GOP should call it what it is—a cut to benefits," he added.
"Republicans still haven't released a budget, but they're continuing to make their priorities clear: They want to protect wealthy donors while cutting food assistance and healthcare from families."
As for Medicaid, state experiments with work requirements have proven disastrous. In Arkansas, a state that briefly imposed work requirements on Medicaid recipients during the Trump era before a judge intervened, more than 18,000 people lost health coverage due to the rules.
Some Republicans, including Gaetz and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), want to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients nationwide, a move that would compound massive coverage losses stemming from the recent end of pandemic protections.
In February, Gaetz unveiled the Medicaid Work Requirements Act, which would mandate that adults deemed "able-bodied" work at least 120 hours a month, volunteer for at least 80 hours a month, or take part in a work training program for at least 80 hours a month to remain eligible for Medicaid benefits.
"Republicans still haven't released a budget, but they're continuing to make their priorities clear: They want to protect wealthy donors while cutting food assistance and healthcare from families," tweeted the Senate Budget Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
In a statement to the Post on Tuesday, White House spokesman Michael Kikukawa indicated that Biden will oppose adding new work requirements to SNAP and Medicaid as part of any deal to raise the debt ceiling.
"The president has been clear that he will oppose policies that push Americans into poverty or cause them to lose healthcare," said Kikukawa. "That's why he opposes Republican proposals that would take food assistance and Medicaid away from millions of people by adding burdensome, bureaucratic requirements."
As the GOP ramps up its assault on SNAP and other critical programs, members of the Senate Democratic caucus are urging the Biden administration to do everything in its power to bolster and expand federal food aid, which was slashed for many families earlier this year when pandemic-related enhancements lapsed.
In a letter to the heads of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Social Security Administration (SSA) earlier this week, a dozen Senate lawmakers called for action to remove "administrative burdens that create barriers to food security" for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients.
"SSI recipients are low-income people at least 65 years old, or blind or disabled adults or children," the lawmakers wrote. "To help alleviate food insecurity, SSA and USDA must create a seamless path to ensuring that SSI recipients and applicants can obtain SNAP benefits, one with minimal administrative burden. SNAP is the nation's largest anti-hunger program and SNAP benefits translate to fewer people in poverty and a healthier population."
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House Freedom Caucus Economic Hostage-Takers Issue Latest Ransom Demands
"These power-hungry lawmakers are so determined to keep the Biden administration from rebuilding the middle class that they're willing to tank the economy to do it," one advocate warned.
Mar 10, 2023
A cadre of far-right Republicans announced Friday that they may only vote to raise the debt ceiling if Congress agrees to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending, limit federal agencies' future budgets, and abandon progressive elements of President Joe Biden's economic agenda.
Since Washington's arbitrary and arguably unconstitutional borrowing limit was breached in January, the Treasury Department has implemented "extraordinary measures" enabling the U.S. government to meet its obligations for a few additional months. Unless the Biden administration takes unilateral action to disarm the debt ceiling, Congress has until sometime between July and September to increase or suspend the nation's borrowing cap. If Republicans refuse to do so, the U.S. is poised to suffer a catastrophic default.
Led by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the House Freedom Caucus said Friday in a
statement that its 45 members would "consider voting" to raise the debt limit if their colleagues in the House and Senate agree to:
- Eliminate Biden's $400 billion student debt cancellation plan;
- Rescind unspent Covid-19 relief funds;
- Nix nearly $400 billion worth of clean energy investments approved in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA);
- Repeal the IRA's roughly $80 billion funding boost for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS);
- Restore Clinton-era work requirements on welfare recipients;
- Require congressional approval before any major federal regulations can take effect;
- Cap future federal spending at 2022 levels for the next 10 years; and
- Find "every dollar spent by Democrats that can be reclaimed for the American taxpayer."
Although Capitol Hill's deficit hawks are eager to attack the poor and slash popular programs, they
don't support reducing the ever-expanding U.S. military budget or hiking taxes on corporations and the rich to increase revenue. Rescinding the IRS funding boost, meanwhile, would help wealthy households evade taxes and add an estimated $114 billion to the federal deficit.
"The MAGA extremists running the House fully intend to manufacture a disastrous default crisis by making demands they know to be nonstarters—like letting wealthy tax cheats and big polluters off the hook," Liz Zelnick, director of Economic Security and Corporate Power at Accountable.US, said in a statement.
"These power-hungry lawmakers are so determined to keep the Biden administration from rebuilding the middle class that they're willing to tank the economy to do it," Zelnick continued.
With Republicans possessing a five-seat House majority and the ability of any party member to introduce a motion to remove the House speaker—a new rule the Freedom Caucus secured in exchange for electing Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to the role—a few dozen of the GOP's most right-wing members have significant leverage over the fate of the U.S. and world economy.
"They demand sacrifice only from everyday Americans while they insist on preserving or even expanding wasteful tax breaks for billionaires and greedy corporations," said Zelnick. "They're playing a dangerous game of chicken with the economy and the lives of millions of working families."
"The MAGA extremists running the House... demand sacrifice only from everyday Americans while they insist on preserving or even expanding wasteful tax breaks for billionaires and greedy corporations."
A 2011 debt ceiling standoff—when Biden was vice president—enabled congressional Republicans to impose austerity and also resulted in a historic downgrading of the U.S. government's credit rating, but the country has never defaulted on its debt. Economists warned during the last standoff in 2021 that a default would trigger enough chaos in global financial markets to destroy almost six million jobs and roughly $15 trillion in household wealth in the U.S. alone.
Fully aware of the stakes, GOP lawmakers have threatened on multiple occasions over the past few months to unleash economic pain on a mass scale unless they succeed in gutting the relatively underdeveloped U.S. welfare state.
"Speaker McCarthy is not going to cut a deal with Democrats," Perry said Friday at a press conference. "We're not assuming that leadership is opposed to these thing[s]... this is all reasonable stuff."
The latest ultimatum from the Freedom Caucus "appeared to complicate efforts to clinch a deal and avert a looming fiscal calamity," The Washington Post reported.
Biden has repeatedly denounced Republicans for taking the economy hostage in a bid to force through harmful changes, declining to entertain what he calls their "gut punch to the middle class." The president on Friday reiterated his refusal to consider the GOP's proposed cuts, saying, "I don't know [if] there's much to negotiate on."
On Thursday, the White House released its budget request for fiscal year 2024. Notwithstanding Biden's attempt to further increase Pentagon spending, the framework has been hailed by progressives for proposing tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy to expand a range of public goods, including substantial funding for climate action, childcare, education, healthcare, housing, and more.
Although Biden's proposal would reduce the federal deficit by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade—the same amount mentioned in the Freedom Caucus' austerity blueprint—Perry said Friday that the White House's progressive tax and investment plan is "not happening."
In an ominous sign, "Republicans readied a bill earlier this week that would prepare the government in the event of a default," the Post reported. "The measure, which the tax-focused Ways and Means Committee sent to the full House, essentially would prioritize some federal payments over others in the event the United States no longer had the authority to borrow."
Notably, this entire episode of fiscal brinkmanship could have been avoided had Democrats listened to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other progressives who urged the party to raise the debt ceiling—or abolish it altogether—when it still controlled both chambers of Congress last year.
Conservative Democrats refused to act during the lame-duck session despite Warren's warning that GOP lawmakers desperate to win the White House in 2024 will "blow up the economy" and run ads blaming Biden for it.
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'There Is Evidence of Criminality': Jan. 6 Panel Meets to Decide Referrals to DOJ
The committee is reportedly considering criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump and four associates: Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark Meadows.
Dec 11, 2022
Members of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol are expected to finalize decisions on criminal referrals during a virtual meeting Sunday afternoon.
CBS News' Margaret Brennan inquired about the panel's plans earlier Sunday, when Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)--a member of the subcommittee created to deal with outstanding issues, including potential referrals--to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)--appeared on "Face the Nation."
Pointing to reporting that the committee is considering referrals for former President Donald Trump, ex-DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, right-wing attorney John Eastman, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, she asked, "Is there a consensus on whether to send a referral for criminal prosecution to the Justice Department, and would doing that be anything more than symbolic?"
"I think we are in common agreement about what our approach should be. I'm not ready or authorized at this point to tell you what that is. We are, as a subcommittee--several of us that were charged with making the recommendation about referrals--gonna be making that recommendation to full committee today," Schiff said, adding that the decisions will be included in a panel report set to be released later this month.
Schiff continued:
What I can tell you about the process is we're looking at: What is the quantum of evidence that we have against individuals? What is the impact of making a referral? Are we gonna create some suggestion by referring some, that others, there wasn't sufficient evidence, when we don't know, for example, what evidence is in the position of the Justice Department?
So, if we do make referrals, we want to be very careful about how we do them. But I think we're all certainly in agreement that there is evidence of criminality here and we want to make sure that the Justice Department is aware of that.
In the wake of Trump's announcement last month that he is seeking the GOP's presidential nomination for 2024--despite his various legal issues and inciting last year's deadly Capitol attack with his "Big Lie" about the 2020 contest--Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor, as special counsel to oversee ongoing investigations involving the twice-impeached former president.
The DOJ notably does not need a referral from Congress to bring charges. Referencing the department's probes, Brennan asked Schiff, "So what does the committee sending a referral do other than look political?"
"Well, look, we have been far out ahead in most respects of the Justice Department in conducting our investigation," the congressman responded. "I think they have made use of the evidence that we have presented in open hearings. I think they'll make use of the evidence that we present in our report to further their investigations."
"And I think it makes an important statement, not a political one, but a statement about the evidence of an attack on the institutions of our democracy and the peaceful transfer of power, that Congress examining an attack on itself is willing to report criminality," he added. "So I think it's an important decision in its own right if we go forward with it and one that the department ought to give due consideration to."
Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) had confirmed to reporters on Thursday that the committee planned to make decisions about criminal referrals during Sunday's meeting.
"I think the more we looked at the body of evidence that we had collected," he said, "we just felt that while we're not in the business of investigating people for criminal activities, we just couldn't overlook some of them."
The panel's only two Republicans--Vice Chair Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.)--are both leaving office in a few weeks and the GOP is set to take control of the House. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who hopes to be the next speaker, has vowed to hold hearings investigating the committee.
The Hill reported Sunday that McCarthy and the other four members of Congress who ignored subpoenas from the committee--GOP Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), and Reps. Scott Perry (Pa.)--could be referred to the House Ethics Committee rather than the DOJ.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional law expert who chairs the subcommittee focusing on referrals, pointed to the relevant part of the U.S. Constitution.
"The speech or debate clause makes it clear that Congress doesn't hold members of Congress accountable in the judiciary or other places in the government," he said. "Members of Congress are only held accountable through Article 1 in their own chambers for their actions."
This post has been updated with reporting about the five House Republicans who defied subpoenas from the panel.
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