Post Politics Now House Republicans struggling with narrow majority as Congress returns

Some of the most controversial House Republicans were named to the chamber’s powerful Rules Committee, according to lists shared by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday.

The committee, which will be chaired by Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, includes Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. The two were among the group of Republicans who withheld support for McCarthy’s speakership until after he made several concessions to the more far-right wing of the party.

Roy was adamant McCarthy change the way the House operates, claiming that “Washington is broken.”

Former president Donald Trump will deliver the keynote address at the annual New Hampshire GOP meeting Saturday, hours ahead of a planned campaign trip to South Carolina.

The events will be Trump’s first public appearances of his 2024 campaign. The former president has mainly held private events in Florida since announcing his presidential bid in November.

New Hampshire has long been the first state to hold a presidential primary. While Trump will be delivering remarks to the New Hampshire GOP, the top Republican in the state, Gov. Chris Sununu, is a vocal critic of the former president.

Trump administration attorney general William P. Barr has undertaken something of a reclamation project of late, repeatedly criticizing the former president over various issues, including the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But, as Aaron Blake writes, when it comes to perhaps Barr’s highest-profile controversy — his misleading summary of the Mueller report — old habits apparently die hard.

Barr has given media interviews since the end of the Trump administration. But unlike his appearances on Fox News, Barr’s discussion with Bill Maher on HBO this weekend paired him with a potentially more critical host.

In what was otherwise a relatively chummy interview, Maher did briefly press Barr on the subject of the summary, saying the way he “mischaracterized” the Mueller report was “shady.”

Barr defended his handling of the matter. But in doing so, he rolled out some of the most misleading aspects of his summary all over again.

“I felt that I had to say something to give the bottom line of what [Mueller] had decided,” Barr said. “Number one, I said that he had found there was no collusion.”

This isn’t strictly accurate now, just as it wasn’t strictly accurate back when Barr first said it. In fact, as we came to find out, Mueller said explicitly in his report that he wasn’t examining the nonlegal concept of collusion.

“Collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law,” the Mueller report reads. “For those reasons, the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law.”

Barr’s use of the “no collusion” phrasing was suspect not just because the report didn’t directly address it, but because it matched Trump’s own mantra and defined the amorphous term in a way Trump surely approved of.

In his interview this weekend, Barr proceeded to defend his summary of the second portion of Mueller’s report, having to do with whether Trump obstructed justice during the investigation.

Mueller “states, colon, that he does not find there was obstruction, but he is not exonerating the president. Okay? I used his exact language,” Barr said. “Then I said he punted but I’m making the decision, and I say, based on the report, there was no obstruction. And the discussion about how there was no obstruction was not me characterizing Mueller, but me stating my conclusion. So those are the facts.”

Again, the issue here isn’t so much inaccuracy as spin. Read more on it here.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said President Biden’s team was “not careful” in handling classified documents, in light of news that several of these files have been found in Biden’s Delaware home and at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.

“Whoever was responsible for it didn’t follow the basic rules,” Durbin told reporters on Monday.

Some of the documents found in Biden’s private office and residence are dated from his time in the Senate.

“That’s a long time ago,” Durbin noted. Asked if he knows how this was possible, Durbin said: “I don’t know the answer to that.”

Supreme Court justices on Monday returned to the bench to issue opinions in-person for the first time in nearly three years — and went 1 for 2.

As Robert Barnes reports, the court issued a unanimous ruling that went against a veteran who was seeking expanded benefits for a trauma he said he suffered years ago. But the court dismissed a case it heard only two weeks ago involving a law firm’s obligation to hand over documents to a grand jury. In the court’s parlance, the case was “improvidently granted,” meaning that after oral arguments, the justices found problems with resolving it.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday painted a dire picture of the outlook if the nation defaulted on its debt, blasting Republicans for “saying yes to brinksmanship” in their rhetoric about debt ceiling negotiations.

If the United States defaulted on its debt, Schumer warned that the consequences would affect “just about every average American family.” Interest rates would go up on mortgages, car loans, credit cards and pensions, he said, while home values and people’s retirement accounts would decline.

Pete Ricketts (R) was sworn in as the junior senator from Nebraska on Monday afternoon.

Ricketts will replace former senator Ben Sasse (R), who resigned earlier this month to become the University of Florida’s next president. Ricketts, who hit his two-term limit as Nebraska governor, was named to the job by his successor, Gov. Jim Pillen (R).

Vice President Harris swore Ricketts in just after the chamber was called to order Monday afternoon. Ricketts was accompanied by Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.).

“Pete, we’re glad to have you here on the team,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said after the swearing-in.

President Biden will head to Baltimore and New York next week to promote the bipartisan infrastructure deal and discuss improvements made to travel in the Northeast Corridor that will be funded by the law.

Biden will first travel to Baltimore on Jan. 30, where he will highlight the replacement of the 150-year-old Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel. On Tuesday, he’ll go to New York City, where he will talk about improvements being made to the Hudson Tunnel project.

A 148-year-old tunnel is the biggest rail bottleneck between D.C. and New Jersey. Here’s the new plan to replace it.

The president’s goal, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, is to show voters that “we can still do big things when we all work together.”