Republicans have chosen Congressman Mike Johnson as their new choice for the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
He is the fourth person suggested for a position after three others didn’t get enough support, and he is the second one suggested today.
Mr Johnson was chosen on Tuesday evening after three voting rounds.
Since Kevin McCarthy was removed on October 3rd, the House has not had a Speaker and has not been able to pass any bills.
Louisiana’s Mr Johnson, who is 51 years old, was chosen. House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik shared this information.
Republicans in Congress have a small lead over Democrats, so their chosen candidate can only lose a few votes from their own party and still win.
Mr Johnson was chosen as the nominee shortly after the previous nominee, Tom Emmer, withdrew because he did not have enough support.
It is not clear if Mr. Johnson will have enough votes to win in the House. He needs 217 votes, which is a simple majority.
In the voting that happened on Tuesday, Mr. Johnson came in second place after Mr. Emmer However, Emmer withdrew from the race because former President Donald Trump criticized him.
Ms Stefanik said that Mr. Johnson got 128 votes in the last round of voting. Congressman Byron Donald came in second place with 29 votes.
Mr Johnson is likely to have his nomination approved by a vote in the House on Wednesday afternoon. If he does not succeed, Republicans will have to start over once more.
Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher told Politico that he doesn’t think Mr. Johnson can get enough votes to win in the House.
“He said that repeating the same thing over and over again is like being insane, as far as he knows. ”
Mr Johnson is a lawyer and used to host a talk radio show. He has been a member of the House since 2016. He used to be the leader of the Republican Study Committee, and is seen as a good friend of Mr. Jordan
In 2020, Mr Johnson was seen as an important person who tried to challenge Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election for president.
Tag: House of Representatives
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Republicans choose Mike Johnson as their candidate for Speaker
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Biden’s impeachment investigation to begin in the House of Representatives
The highest-ranking Republican in the US House of Representatives has announced that they will begin a formal investigation into President Joe Biden, which could lead to his removal from office.
Kevin McCarthy said the investigation will concentrate on “claims of misuse of authority, obstruction, and corruption” by Mr.
Republicans have been looking into the actions of the president ever since they gained control of the House in January.
The investigations did not find any clear proof that Mr Biden did anything wrong.
They have provided more information about the business transactions of Hunter Biden, the son of the president, which Republicans believe are suspicious. They have also revealed details about Mr. Biden’s knowledge of his son’s actions.
Mr McCarthy spoke briefly at the US Capitol and said that there were serious and believable allegations about the president’s behavior.
“He said that when all of these accusations are considered together, they indicate that there is a lot of corruption happening within the group. ”
The White House was fast to criticize Mr McCarthy’s choice.
“House Republicans have been looking into the President’s actions for nine months, and they haven’t found any proof of him doing something wrong,” said White House spokesperson Ian Sams in a social media message.
The politics are really bad and extreme.
Hunter Biden is being investigated by the government for potentially breaking tax laws in connection to his business dealings with other countries.
Mr McCarthy, who is a lawmaker from California, also claimed that the president’s family has been treated differently by officials from the Biden administration who are looking into accusations of wrongdoing.
This investigation will give government investigators more power to look into the president by allowing them to ask for certain documents and testimony. These requests will be easier to enforce in court.
“Title: Media Explanation” Media refers to various forms of communication, such as television, radio, newspapers, and the internet. It is how people share information and entertainment with each other.
McCarthy is saying that President Biden told lies to the American people.
The US Constitution says that a president can be removed from office if they commit acts like betraying the country, taking bribes, or doing other serious illegal things.
The announcement on Tuesday is the initial step in a series of actions that might lead to a vote for impeachment in the House. The Republicans currently have a slim majority of 222-212 in the House.
After that, it would go to a Senate trial – which is a political process, not a criminal one.
If the Senate chooses guilty, the president is taken out of office. If they vote that the person is not guilty, they can keep doing their job.
Democrats are in control of the Senate, and if it reaches that point, they will most likely reject the proceedings.
Mr Trump, who is the only US president to have been impeached twice, was declared not guilty on both occasions by his fellow Republicans.
Mr McCarthy is the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. He has been approached by right-wing members for many weeks to begin an impeachment investigation.
Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is a friend of former President Donald Trump, thinks that the announcement is only a small step forward. This is because there has been a lot of pressure from conservative members of the House for more action to be taken. He warned that he would take action to remove Mr McCarthy from his leadership role if the Speaker did not begin an impeachment investigation.
Mr McCarthy has had a weak hold on power in the House since he became the top leader in January, after going through 15 rounds of voting. This was a modern record. As a condition for becoming the leader, he promised to give one member of Congress the authority to start a vote to remove him from his position.
Mr McCarthy is currently working hard to guide a series of spending bills through the House. Congress needs to approve these actions before the end of September to prevent the US government from partially shutting down.
Mr McCarthy’s decision to support impeachment could be seen as an effort to gain favor from conservative House Republicans before important debates about the budget.
However, there are dangers involved in using this plan. Republican politicians in areas with tough competition have expressed concern about a strong push for impeachment. They worry that this approach might distance them from independent and moderate voters who helped them win elections.
The Democrats are saying that Mr. McCarthy strongly criticized Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, in 2019. This happened when she started an investigation to impeach Mr. Trump without officially voting on it.
Mr McCarthy has agreed to investigate whether to impeach someone. But there will be more pressure for a vote in the House to officially authorize the impeachment hearings and establish the rules.
This vote will make the centrists publicly known for their decision and give the Democrats something to criticize during the November 2024 election.
But that is a problem for Mr McCarthy next year. Right now, he is attempting to prevent rebellious conservative members of Congress from openly rebelling – and making a vote to remove him from his position.
The process of removing a president from office, known as impeachment, or at least the start of that process, could give him enough time and space to survive the next few months politically. -
Trump faces four criminal charges from the Capitol riot committee
US congressional investigation into the Capitol riot last year has revealed that, former President Donald Trump should be charged with crimes such as insurrection.
The justice department should bring charges against Mr. Trump, was the unanimous vote of the Democratic-led committee.
A fresh video of former Trump aide Hope Hicks warning him about his legacy was also shown on the panel.
On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters stormed Congress and prevented Joe Biden from being sworn in as president.
Trump, who insists he did nothing wrong, attacked the panel in a statement, calling it a “kangaroo court.”
After spending around 18 months investigating the riot, the House of Representatives select committee recommended at their final meeting on Monday that Mr Trump face four charges:
The justice department – whose prosecutors are already considering whether to charge Mr Trump – does not have to follow a congressional committee’s referral.
While the panel’s actions are mostly symbolic, the chairman described the proposed charges as a “roadmap to justice”.
A justice department spokesman declined to comment on Monday about the referral.
“An insurrection is a rebellion against the authority of the United States,” said congressman Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who serves on the committee.
“It is a grave federal offence, anchored in the Constitution itself.”
The panel’s seven Democrats and two Republicans released their preliminary 161-page executive summary on Monday.
It accused Mr Trump of a “multi-part conspiracy” to thwart the will of voters in the run-up to the Capitol riot and during the riot itself.
The House committee has argued Mr Trump spread claims that he knew were false about the 2020 presidential election being stolen, before pressuring state officials, the justice department and his own vice-president to help overturn his defeat. The panel accuses him of inciting the riot at Congress in a last-ditch bid to block the peaceful transfer of power to Mr Biden.
The full report, spanning hundreds of pages, is due to be released on Wednesday.
On Monday, the panel also released a new video from their deposition with longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, who said she had warned Mr Trump that by continuing to make false claims about the election, he and his team were “damaging his legacy”.
Mr Trump had shrugged off her concern, she said.
The then-Republican president, she testified, “said something along the lines of, ‘Nobody will care about my legacy if I lose, so that won’t matter.
“‘The only thing that matters is winning.’”
The committee also criticised the president’s eldest daughter Ivanka Trump, a former White House aide, for not being “forthcoming” with investigators.
Ms Trump and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany “displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues, or were not otherwise as frank or direct” as other aides to Mr Trump, the report said.
Mr Trump’s presidential campaign, which he launched last month, released a statement accusing the committee of holding “show trials by Never Trump partisans who are a stain on this country’s history”.
“This Kangaroo court has been nothing more than a vanity project that insults Americans’ intelligence and makes a mockery of our democracy.”
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES Image caption, A Trump bust being held up during the day of the riot at the US Capitol The committee also said it would refer four Republican members of Congress to the House ethics committee, including Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, for failing to comply with the committee.
“If we are to survive as a nation of laws and democracy, this can never happen again,” said committee chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat.
“If the faith is broken, so is our democracy. Donald Trump broke that faith,” he added.
More than 900 people have been charged in relation to the Capitol riot.
Source: BBC.com
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Trump taxes: Supreme Court clears Democrats to see returns
The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for ex-President Donald Trump‘s tax forms to be released to a Democratic-controlled congressional committee.
The justices rejected Mr Trump’s bid in October to block a lower court’s ruling that granted the panel’s request for his financial records.
The move is a blow to Mr Trump, who has for years kept his returns sealed.
Mr Trump became the first president in 40 years not to release his taxes after announcing his first presidential run.
The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee has been seeking access to his records since 2019.
Mr Trump, who launched his third campaign for the White House last week, is facing several investigations related to his business practices. He denies any wrongdoing.
The Supreme Court’s brief response on Tuesday did not note dissent from any of the judges.
The decision means the US treasury department can deliver the tax returns from 2015-20 for Mr Trump and some of his businesses to the Democratic-controlled committee.
It comes just before the Republicans take control of the House after this month’s midterm elections.
Donald Trump was almost able to run out the clock on the congressional request to view his tax returns.
Almost.
With just over a month left of Democratic control of the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court has given the green light for the treasury department to provide the documents to the Ways and Means Committee.
Given that the treasury department is run by the Biden administration, the process of handing over the documents should proceed expeditiously.
Democrats won’t have long to review them before Republicans take over on 3 January, however.
And coming up with any proposed changes to federal law regarding presidential tax returns – the stated purpose of the congressional request – seems a pointless effort with the little time remaining before congressional adjournment.
But a few weeks may be long enough to unearth evidence of any unusual or potentially improper accounting by Mr Trump – and for those details to leak to the public.
And that, many assume, was the real motive behind the request.
Mr Trump has notched two other defeats this year from the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, three of whose justices he appointed.
In October, the court refused to weigh in on the legal fight over the FBI search of Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Agents served a warrant at the estate in August on suspicion that the former president improperly handled classified documents.
In January, the court refused to act to stop the National Archives from handing over documents to the committee investigating the 6 January 2021 riot by Trump supporters at the US Capitol.
Mr Trump has rejected the Ways and Means Committee’s hunt for his taxes as politically motivated.
The chairman of the committee, Congressman Richard Neal, said in a statement that lawmakers “will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years”. He did not say whether the committee plans to publicly release Mr Trump’s tax statements.
Last year, a Trump-appointed judge on the court of appeals in Washington DC ruled that the House did have a legitimate need to review the forms.
The committee argued it needed to see Mr Trump’s records to determine if tax officials were properly auditing presidential candidates, and whether any new legislation was necessary.
They had argued to the lower court that Mr Trump’s refusal blocked Congress from conducting oversight of the executive and judicial branches.
Source: BBC.com
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Midterm elections results: Two days on this is where the races stand
The ultimate outcome of the US midterms remains unclear nearly two days after polls closed, with control of Congress still hanging in the balance.
Control of the Senate now hinges on the outcome of three states: Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, where a run-off election will be held on 6 December.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are inching closer to a 218-seat majority in the House of Representatives.
President Joe Biden has hailed the results as a “good day for America”.
Electoral officials have repeatedly described the delays announcing the final results as a normal, expected part of US elections due to thin margins between candidates, possible recounts and potentially contested elections. Additionally, rules differ by state for how mail-in ballots are counted, and when.
As of Thursday morning:
The House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is leaning towards the Republicans, according to projections from CBS News, the BBC’s partner in the US.
The Republicans have so far secured 211 seats, compared to 193 for the Democrats. A total of 218 seats are needed to gain a majority in the legislative body, which has 435 members.
The Senate
Control of the Senate remains a toss-up, with the Democrats having secured 48 seats to the Republicans’ 49. Three races – Arizona, Nevada and Georgia – have yet to be called.
CBS has projected that Arizona is leaning Democrat, while Nevada could go to either party.
Alaska- where three candidates were on the ballot in a ranked-choice voting system – has not been called, although CBS has projected it will remain Republican, with two Republicans – incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski and challenger Kelly Tshibaka – in the lead.
In Georgia, the closely-watched Senate race between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will head to a run-off in December.
With a third-party candidate on the ballot in this week‘s election, neither candidate secured the 50% of the votes needed for a winner to be declared.
In Arizona, hundreds of thousands of ballots remained uncounted as of Wednesday night, including an estimated 400,000 in Maricopa County and approximately 159,000 in Pima County, where officials have said that a final count is unlikely until early next week.
In addition to a hotly contested Senate race between Democrat Mark Kelly and Republican Blake Masters, the state is host to a high-profile match-up for governor between Democrat Katie Hobbs and Donald Trump-backed Republican Kari Lake.
Votes are still also being tabulated in Nevada,where thousands of ballots – nearly 60,000 – still needed to be processed.
Even with results still being calculated on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden said the election was a “good day” for US democracy. An expected ‘red wave’ of resounding Republican victories failed to materialise despite high inflation and relatively low approval ratings for the Biden administration.
Source: BBC.com
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Trump becomes third US president to be impeached
Donald Trump has become the third US president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives, setting up a trial in the Senate that will decide whether he remains in office.
The House voted on two charges – that the president abused his power and that he had obstructed Congress.
Both votes fell along party lines with nearly all Democrats voting for the charges and all Republicans against.
As voting took place, President Trump was addressing a campaign rally.
He told the crowd in Battle Creek, Michigan: “While we’re creating jobs and fighting for Michigan, the radical left in Congress is consumed with envy and hatred and rage, you see what’s going on.”
The White House released a statement saying that the president was “confident that he will be fully exonerated” in a Senate trial.
Read:Trump declines to attend impeachment hearing
The proceedings on Wednesday began with members of Mr Trump’s Republican Party calling for votes on procedural issues in an effort to frustrate the process.
That was followed by a vote on the rules to be set out for the impeachment, which kicked off six hours of partisan debate on the merits of the two impeachment charges against President Trump.
At about 20:30 local time (01:30 GMT), the House called for votes on the two charges: first, abuse of power, stemming from Mr Trump’s alleged attempt to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into his Democratic political rival, Joe Biden; and second, obstruction of Congress, because the president allegedly refused to co-operate with the impeachment inquiry, withholding documentary evidence and barring his key aides from giving evidence.
The vote for the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, was passed 230-197 and the second, for obstruction of Congress, 229-198.
Being impeached places Donald Trump alongside only two other presidents in the nation’s history – Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton – and sets up a trial in the Senate for his presidency.
Read:Trump impeachment vote delayed after long debate
A day of hyper-partisanship
And so it is done. Donald Trump now becomes the third member of the exclusive club that no-one wants to be a member of.
But the framers of the constitution with its impeachment provision could never have imagined the hyper-partisanship – on both sides – that has been witnessed during today’s sterile House proceedings. Each side with its own narrative, neither side listening to the other. And one can say with some certainty – I would bet all my yet-to-be-gifted Christmas presents – that it will be much the same once this becomes a trial in the Senate in the New Year.
Donald Trump will be acquitted. He won’t be forced from office. So what changes? Well, Donald Trump will have a place in the history books – and for a man with such a huge sense of self that will hurt. Acutely. But 2020? Far from this being a killer blow against President Trump, it might turbo charge his bid for a second term. The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was always wary about going down the impeachment route. We’ll discover next November whether that concern was well founded.
During the House debates, Mr Trump tweeted several times, calling the Democratic arguments “ATROCIOUS LIES BY THE RADICAL LEFT” and an “ASSAULT ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!!”.
Read:In historic move, U.S. House set to vote to impeach Trump
The Republican Party has a majority in the Senate, making it highly unlikely the president will be removed from office when senators cast their votes. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell last week said that Republican senators would act in “total co-ordination” with the president’s team during the trial, outraging Democrats who pointed out that Senators are obliged to act as impartial jurors.
What did House members say?
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened the debate on Wednesday with a speech from the floor of the House.
“For centuries Americans have fought and died to defend democracy for the people, but very sadly now our founder’s vision of a republic is under threat from actions from the White House,” she said,
“If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty. It is tragic that the president’s reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice.”
Democratic representative Joe Kennedy, a grand-nephew of President John F Kennedy, used his speech to address his children directly, explaining his decision to vote for impeachment.
“Dear Ellie and James: This is a moment that you’ll read about in your history books,” the Massachusetts congressman said, going on to accuse the president of “using his power as a weapon against his own people”.
Read:House of Representatives impeaches President Donald Trump
Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, accused Democrats of conducting an unfair and illegitimate inquiry.
“This is an impeachment based on presumption. This is a poll-tested impeachment about what actually sells to the American people,” Mr Collins said.
Republican Barry Loudermilk compared the impeachment process to the fate of Jesus Christ. “During that sham trial, Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than Democrats have afforded this president in this process,” Mr Loudermilk said.
Democrats were reportedly instructed by Ms Pelosi to treat the process solemnly. She told reporters outside the chamber she was “sad” about the proceedings, and a number of Democrats reflected on their disappointment at being involved in impeachment proceedings.
Across the country in the 24 hours leading up to the vote, pro-impeachment protesters took to the streets. Hundreds of people gathered in Times Square in New York on Tuesday night, chanting: “Tell me who’s above the law? Nobody is above the law!”
A man displays a pro-Trump sign near the Capitol on Wednesday The president had made an extraordinary intervention on the eve of Wednesday’s vote, penning an irate six-page letter to Ms Pelosi accusing her of declaring “open war on American democracy”.
In the letter, which was published by the White House, the president claimed he had been “deprived of basic Constitutional Due Process from the beginning of this impeachment scam”. He was in fact publicly invited by the Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee to give evidence, a move that would also have allowed his legal team to question witnesses, but he declined.
Source:Â bbc.com