House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is again facing challenges and the threat of an ouster from within his House conference.
The latest threat to Johnson’s position comes from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who yesterday announced that he would back Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) motion to vacate the speaker’s chair.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) speaks at a House Second Amendment Caucus press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on June 8, 2022. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
“I just told Mike Johnson in conference that I’m cosponsoring the motion to vacate that was introduced by [Greene],” Massie wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The move comes after Johnson announced on April 15 that he would bring four foreign aid and geopolitical security packages to the floor this week, including financial aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. A fourth bill would wrap together a bill banning TikTok and the REPO Act, legislation that would allow the United States to partially finance foreign assistance by seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs.
Though Johnson plans to bring the four bills to the floor as standalone packages, he reportedly will wrap them into a single large package to send to the Senate after they pass the House—a plan that frustrated Massie and other Republicans.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) slammed Johnson for wanting to combine the bills into a single package.
“I supported the plans Speaker Johnson announced in conference to allow the House to vote on the various aid packages separately. But his since-announced intent to merge them together before sending them to the Senate is wrong,” he posted on X.
“Israel funding should not be held hostage by Ukraine funding. The American people deserve to know where their senators stand on each funding component.”
Though Greene introduced the motion to vacate weeks ago, she has yet to make it privileged—a move that would force Johnson to allow a vote on the measure.
However, it’s a motion she could activate at any time.
Greene dismissed the four-pronged plan as “a scam” but did not say whether she would activate her motion to vacate in response to it.
Massie’s support of the motion, nevertheless, puts Johnson in a tight spot.
He currently controls the House by a historically slim two-vote margin—meaning that Greene and Massie’s threat to vacate is far from an idle one, as it would only require the backing of one other Republican to succeed.
That is, unless Democrats come to his aid.
That’s far from an impossibility, however: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has suggested it could happen.
During a press conference last week, Jeffries said: “If the speaker will do the right thing and allow the House to have an up or down vote on the national security bill, I believe that there are a reasonable number of Democrats who would not want to see the speaker fall.”
The House Rules Committee will mark up the bills later this week. What happens after that is uncertain.
—Joseph Lord
JAN. 6 CASE REACHES SUPREME COURT
Controversy over Jan. 6 reached the Supreme Court again yesterday when the justices heard an appeal from defendants charged for their actions that day.
The U.S. Supreme Court, ahead of hearing arguments in a case that could affect the prosecution of January 6 defendants, including former President Donald Trump, in Washington on April 16, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
Fischer v. United States, the case in question, has received copious press coverage as the charge in question has been brought in President Donald Trump’s D.C. case and many others related to Jan. 6. It also comes just a week before President Trump’s immunity appeal at the Supreme Court and weeks after the justices rejected Colorado’s ballot disqualification, which was based on him purportedly engaging in an insurrection.
The justices seemed divided over the Biden administration’s attempt to charge the defendants with a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 that prohibited the obstruction of official proceedings.
Jeffrey Green, who argued for Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer, urged the court to reverse a D.C. Circuit opinion supporting the Justice Department’s use of the law. Mr. Green contended that the law was intended to address obstruction as it related to evidence tampering rather than obstructing an official proceeding in a more general sense.
Section 1512(c), the relevant portion of the law, states: “Whoever corruptly (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
The word “otherwise” and its function as a connector between 1512(c)(1) and 1512(c)(2) was the subject of much debate. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that it created a “catch-all” section whereas Mr. Green suggested it created a more limited extension of 1512(c)(1).
Fischer, a former police officer and the petitioner in Fischer v. United States, had entered the Capitol but claimed he wasn’t “part of the mob that forced the electoral certification to stop.”
DOJ charged him with assault of a federal officer and claimed that he was trying to obstruct the 2020 election certification. It pointed to a text message in which Mr. Fischer said members of Congress couldn’t “vote if they can’t breathe.”
Justice Samuel Alito seemed most poised to support Fischer and peppered the solicitor general with questions about the limits of the Biden administration’s position. At one point, he asked whether protesters blocking roads and bridges around the nation’s capital, as happened on April 15 when pro-Palestinian protesters shut down the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, would violate the statute.
Justice Elena Kagan was critical of Green’s arguments. “There are ways in which (c)(2), multiple ways in which the drafters of (c)(2) could have made it clear that they intended (c)(2) to also operate only in the sphere of evidence spoliation,” she said. “But it doesn’t do that. All it says is “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes.”
—Sam Dorman
MAYORKAS IMPEACHMENT HEADS TO SENATE
Members of the House took the solemn steps from the lower congressional chamber to the Senate to deliver the articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Along with House Clerk Kevin McCumber, House Sergeant at Arms William McFarland, and Senate Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson, the impeachment managers, who would prosecute the case against Mayorkas, walked from the House chamber to the Senate chamber.
The House of Representatives impeachment team delivers the Articles of Impeachment of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate in Washington on April 16, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
The impeachment managers are House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.), House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), August Pfluger (R-Texas), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Ben Cline (R-Va.), Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), Clay Higgins (R-La.), Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), Michael Guest (R-Texas), and Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.).
The ceremonial walk consisted of going past Statuary Hall, the Rotunda and the old Senate chamber until entering the Senate, where Gibson announced the arrival of the impeachment articles.
She also said, “All persons are commanded to keep silence on pain of imprisonment.”
No one was thrown behind bars.
The House impeached Mayorkas in February for what Republicans said was his refusal to enforce immigration law.
That refusal, they say, has led to a crisis at the southern border as millions of illegal immigrants have crossed it during President Joe Biden’s time in office.
There are two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas.
The first one accuses Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and claims that “in large part because of his unlawful conduct, millions of aliens have illegally entered the United States on an annual basis with many unlawfully remaining in the United States.”
“His refusal to obey the law is not only an offense against the separation of powers in the Constitution of the United States, it also threatens our national security and has had a dire impact on communities across the country,” it reads.
The second one accuses Mayorkas of breaching the public trust by having “knowingly made false statements, and knowingly obstructed lawful oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, principally to obfuscate the results of his willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.”
On Wednesday (April 17), all 100 senators, who serve as jurors during impeachment trials, are expected to be sworn in as jurors. Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-Wash.) will preside.
However, the Senate will likely not continue the trial because Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is expected to bring up a motion to table it, thereby ending it.
Schumer has hinted that he will do so.
—Jackson Richman, Mark Tapscott, and Joseph Lord
BOOKMARKS
Despite taking refuge in Florida, Cuban-Americans face threats and assassination attempts, reports The Epoch Times’ Autumn Spredemann. Cuba has 61 people it considers “terrorists.” There have been protests this year against the Communist regime.
Black people are benefiting from the rise in property values in Detroit, according to a University of Michigan report, reports The Associated Press’ Corey Williams. For that demographic, there has been a $2.8 billion increase in home values. This exemplifies a remarkable turnaround for a city that declared bankruptcy a decade ago.
Top officials from Columbia University including the president, Minouche Shafik, are set to be grilled on Wednesday (April 17) by the House Education and Workforce Committee, reports The Washington Post’s Susan Svrluga. The committee grilled the presidents of Harvard, MIT and University of Pennsylvania earlier this year in a hearing that sparked outrage over those presidents appearing to not unequivocally condemn calls for genocide against Jews and Israel as harassment. The hearing comes amid the rise in anti-Semitism on college and university campuses in the United States since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The WNBA Draft occurred on Monday night with Iowa Hawkeyes superstar Caitlin Clark being selected by the Indiana Fever with the first overall pick, reports ESPN’s Alexa Philippou. Clark is one of the greatest female basketball players in history, breaking the NCAA basketball record for most points scored. Clark could very well make the WNBA, which has struggled with viewership, prominent.
