Senators press for answers on Trump shooting
Congressional primaries resume today in Arizona
Also in today’s edition of ‘Regular Order’ for July 30, 2024:
The search for ‘smoking gun evidence.’
Supreme Court reforms DOA with GOP.
National debt ticks over $35 trillion.
TRUMP ATTACK. The biggest media draw today on Capitol Hill will certainly be a hearing on the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump. Two U.S. Senate committees will join together this morning to get testimony from the acting Director of the Secret Service along with the Deputy Director of the FBI. And there are certainly a lot of unanswered questions.
ROOF. Many lawmakers want to know why the shooter was able to get on the roof of a building with a clear shot at where Trump was speaking - and who should have stopped him. "We're going through a pretty detailed timeline, which is in seconds - not just minutes - but seconds," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI).
GOP. Republicans continue to express outrage at information which suggests law enforcement didn't do enough in real time to confront the shooter. "We must hold accountable every executive in the Secret Service and Homeland Security involved in this security failure," said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).
SENATORS. "We need to ask tough questions and investigate on a bipartisan basis," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. Durbin's panel will join with the Homeland Security committee to examine the security failures at the Trump rally.
SECRET SERVICE. This will be the first appearance before Congress on this subject for Ronald Rowe, the new Secret Service Acting Director. His old boss had to resign a week ago today - a day after she gave a House panel almost no new information about the Trump attack.
TASK FORCE. Over in the House, Republicans and Democrats on Monday named the 13 members of a special task force to investigate the Trump rally attack. The special House probe will be led by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA). The top Democrat on the panel will be Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO).
LEADERS. “We have the utmost confidence in this group of steady, highly qualified, and capable Members of Congress,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a joint statement.
ROLL CALL. The GOP members are Kelly PA, Green TN, Joyce OH, Lee FL, Waltz FL, Higgins LA, and Fallon TX. The Democrats are Crow CO, Correa CA, Dean PA, Houlahan PA, Ivey MD, and Moskowitz FL.
SINGLE BULLET THEORY. The odd member in that list is obviously Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA). He’s the guy who has claimed - with absolutely no evidence - that there were ‘ghost buses’ of FBI agents (dressed as Trump supporters) bused in on Jan. 6 to start the violence.
NOT HAPPY. There were some lawmakers who really wanted to be on the assassination panel, but weren’t picked. One of them was Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL), who publicly vowed to press ahead with his own 'parallel independent investigation' of the Trump assassination. (I’m not kidding.)
MILLS. "I will be speaking with other members, and although I won't have subpoena powers, I will personally fund whatever is required for additional staff to further investigation and expose the truth," said Mills, a former Army sniper.
HOUSE GOP. Yep, that’s pretty odd. But in conservative media, there has been all sorts of talk about how the attack was maybe a 'government plot.' Don’t be surprised to see more of that in the weeks ahead.
WHITEWATER. It brings back memories of Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) shooting a watermelon in his backyard in a bid to argue that Clinton White House aide Vince Foster was murdered - instead of a suicide victim.
CONGRESS-ELECTIONS. After a summer hiatus, primaries for Congress resume today in Arizona, as 18 states will wrap up their primary races for the House and Senate over the next six weeks. No incumbents are expecting any trouble today, but there are some interesting primary fights to watch in both parties.
SENATE. Republicans are expected to nominate former TV news anchor Kari Lake for U.S. Senate. Lake, a big time election denier who lost a race for Arizona Governor in 2022, has one main rival, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. The winner will face Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).
GREAT EIGHT. One race to watch is the Republican primary in the Eighth Congressional District, where Donald Trump endorsed two candidates - Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh. Masters was one of the worst GOP candidates of 2022, when he lost a Senate race to Sen. Mark Kelly (R-AZ).
SURROGATE. Also running in the Eighth District GOP race is ex-Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who resigned from Congress in 2017 - after it was revealed that he had asked two women staffers in his office to be a surrogate for his child. Yes, you read that right.
SUPREME COURT. Republicans in Congress on Monday denounced President Biden's call for term limits and ethics reforms at the U.S. Supreme Court. "President Biden’s proposal to radically overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court would tilt the balance of power," said House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called the plan a 'dangerous gambit.’
TERM LIMITS. The plan would set term limits of 18 years for the Justices on a predetermined schedule. Basically, each President would get a chance to nominate a Justice every two years. You can read the White House summary of what the President wants at this link.
ETHICS. Democrats also want an enforceable code of conduct for the Supreme Court - noting the huge amount of gifts that Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito have received, and often not disclosed. "The highest court should have the highest standards, not the lowest," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
DEAD ON ARRIVAL. Everyone knows these plans aren't going anywhere in Congress, because of opposition from Republicans. But I really believe that in the long term - an ethics reform package can be a winner with voters. The Justices have the weakest ethical standards by far, and it's just not acceptable.
GOP CONVENTION. This issue reminds me that one of the biggest applause lines that I heard at the entire Republican convention was when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) called for a ban on stock trades by members of Congress. That brought out a huge cheer from the delegates. Ethics reforms are a popular item with voters of all stripes.
CAMPAIGN. After months of being down in the dumps about their chances in November, Democrats in Congress are now overflowing with optimism and excitement for Vice President Kamala Harris. "She can and will defeat Trump," Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) said last night after a virtual rally with Colorado supporters.
MONEY. Another big virtual gathering for last night Democrats - this one labeled, "White Dudes for Harris” - generated over $4 million in contributions, with more than 150,000 people taking part.
ENTHUSIASM. What we're seeing here is a lot of pent up excitement from Democratic Party voters. The big unknown is whether this will translate into bringing over swing voters to support Harris. But Democrats certainly like how they feel today, as opposed to two weeks ago.
VEEPSTAKES. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has taken himself out of the running to be a candidate for Vice President. "This just wasn't the right time for North Carolina and for me," Cooper said last night.
CAMPAIGN TRAIL. Harris is in Atlanta for campaign events today. Trump holds a rally on Wednesday in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
HAWKEYE. One of the biggest flashpoints in this year's election campaign will be over abortion rights. There was a fresh reminder of that yesterday in Iowa, as a new state law took effect which bans most abortions after about 6 weeks of pregnancy - when most women don't even know they're pregnant.
BLAME GAME. Democrats immediately made the story about Trump and the Justices he put on the Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade. "Make no mistake, this is Trump's doing," said Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA). "Iowa Republicans decided they know what’s best for women," said Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN).
CAMPAIGN. Vice President Harris joined in those attacks. "Iowa today put in place a Trump abortion ban," Harris said, as she has made abortion rights a big part of her campaign pitch since taking over the top slot on the Democratic ticket.
TRUMP. Remember during the GOP convention when I noted that Republicans had snuffed out all talk about abortion in the main convention hall. Over the weekend, Trump once again took credit for getting rid of Roe v. Wade. He just didn't want to talk about it a week earlier on national TV.
TAX BILL. Last week, House Republicans left town after taking a vote on a resolution which denounced Kamala Harris over immigration. It was a classic political messaging vote. This week, Senate Democrats will do much the same, forcing GOP Senators to vote against a House-passed bill expanding the child tax credit before leaving for a summer break.
SCHUMER. "It’s time to get this bill done right away," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has been sitting on this bill for months. "When we vote, the American people will see for themselves who in fact favors expanding the Child Tax Credit."
VANCE. The move to hold a procedural vote on the child tax credit bill will also likely allow Democrats the chance to criticize Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who oddly tried to blame Harris for the lack of action on expanding the child tax credit. Both sides can play the messaging game.
KIDS ONLINE. Thankfully, not everything is about politics. The Senate is poised to approve a pair of bipartisan bills today which are aimed at forcing social media giants to do more to safeguard kids online. "These bills are perhaps the most important updates in decades to federal laws that protect kids on the internet," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
BILLS. One bill is known as 'KOSA' - the Kids Online Safety Act, which requires social media sites to give parents various tools to shield their kids from offensive content. The other is the 'Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act, which updates online data privacy rules for those under 18.
JAN. 6 TAPES. If you missed my news scoop on Monday, the months I’ve spent looking at the Jan. 6 security tapes produced a very interesting story. The tapes show Kenneth Chesebro, the architect of the fake GOP elector scheme, and Trump campaign official G. Michael Brown handing off fake electors documents to staffers for Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) - on Jan. 5. You can read it at this link.
LEGAL. "This is what prosecutors call smoking gun evidence," tweeted former federal prosecutor Joyce Alene. She’s right. The security camera images and the video receipts clearly showed Chesebro and Brown trying to overturn the results of a free and fair election.
IRONY. It's pretty ironic that the only reason these video snippets are available is that House Republicans are releasing them. The tapes are providing solid evidence against Trump allies, both on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6.
UNSOLVED MYSTERIES. I still haven’t been able to figure out what happened to these fake elector documents on Jan. 6. We know that Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) got involved. But I’ve hit a lot of dead ends on what exactly happened.
WORK. It was a lot of work to put this story together - featuring weeks and weeks of searching through security cameras for clues. You can watch the video version of my story here - with the new Jamie 3.0 voice narrating.
NATIONAL DEBT. The latest figures from the Treasury Department released on Monday show the United States has ticked over $35 trillion in debt. More specifically, $35,001,278,179,208.67. (Just try to say it out loud.)
RED INK. All of us know that this amount of debt is unacceptable. The Republicans have stopped trying to rein in the deficit. Democrats definitely have lost all interest in doing anything about the budget. Balancing the budget isn’t on the agenda for either Trump or Harris. It's no way to run a railroad.
RAP SHEET. An Indiana woman who was a former Pentagon contract employee has been hit with four federal criminal charges for her actions on Jan. 6. Patricia Willis was so proud of making it into the Capitol with other rioters that day that she admitted doing it in a job interview - and even showed off photos that she took while inside the building. "Still the best last minute trip I've ever made," she tweeted.
MUSE OF HISTORY. July 30, 1974. On this date, the House Judiciary Committee approved a third and final impeachment article against President Nixon, voting 21-17 to approve a charge related to Nixon's refusal to honor eight subpoenas for Oval Office tape recordings. The panel rejected additional charges dealing with Nixon's conduct of the Vietnam War and his underpayment of federal income taxes.
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM:
The House is back for votes on September 9.
The Senate convenes at 10 am.
Follow me on Twitter @jamiedupree.
Email me at jamiedupree@substack.com
If you want to say ‘thanks’ - you can buy me a cup of coffee.
It’s heartening to see folks like federal prosecutor Joyce Alene paying attention to your bombshell Jan. 6 reporting. I’m hopeful this story continues to gain traction (with proper attribution, of course).
It’s also interesting to see just how many folks went out of their way to personally attack you and your work either on here or on social media, just because you’re reporting something that puts their team on the wrong side of history (not to mention engaging in activities that are quite possibly criminal).
I keep wondering when the cult misinformation bubble is going to burst for these people. Or if that’s even possible any longer for these folks who choose to swallow wholesale lies daily from a career con man.
Thank you for noting and linking President Biden's proposal for a "No President Is Above the Law" constitutional amendment. This is a reminder that Joe Biden not only remains president for the remainder of the year but his energy and vision for the future remain durable and focused. Like many other important proposals this is dead on arrival thanks to Republican opposition, but as current events clearly show, a binding code of ethics and term limits for the Court are long overdue.