Tag: Kevin McCarthy

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Capitol Insurrection Congress

The January 6 Committee Is Closing In On Kevin McCarthy

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is now firmly in the crosshairs of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol insurrection, according to a report from ABC News.

McCarthy is being asked to sit for a voluntary interview with the committee:

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, invited House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Wednesday to sit for an interview with investigators.

“If he has information he wants to share with us, and is willing to voluntarily come in, I’m not taking the invitation off the table,” Thompson said in a phone interview with ABC News.

Earlier this week, McCarthy was asked if he would agree to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee, to which he replied:

“I don’t have anything to add. I have been very public, but I wouldn’t hide from anything.”

That led Chairman Thompson to note:

“If Leader McCarthy has nothing to hide, he can voluntarily come before the committee.”

However, Thompson also made it clear that he may send a formal request to McCarthy for him to appear before the panel. If McCarthy refuses, he could be subpoenaed, which would be problematic for the California Republican, who would be facing a criminal referral to the Justice Department if he ignores a subpoena.

McCarthy has admitted that he spoke with former President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, as CNN reported in February:

In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the US Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.

McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.

Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the then-President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.

The Jan. 6 committee has formally requested interviews with two members of Congress so far: Reps. Scott Perry, (R-PA) and Jim Jordan, (R-OH). Both have said they will not agree to be interviewed.

Categories
Congress GOP GOP Whining

Kevin McCarthy’s Failure To Stop Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Sets Off A ‘Bloodletting’ Inside The GOP

 

For Republicans, last week began with ecstasy and ended with agony, as factions within the party began to turn on each other.

The high point for the GOP was when Glenn Youngkin (R) defeated Terry McAuliffe (D) in the Virginia gubernatorial election. For a while, it even looked as if the incumbent Democratic governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, might also be ousted by a GOP challenger, but Murphy managed to squeak out a narrow victory.

And then, as Aaron Blake of the Washington Post notes, came Friday, and for most of the day it appeared House Democrats might not have the votes to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. But something odd happened: Republicans in the House failed to hold all of their members to vote against the Biden bill:

Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed late Friday night and is headed for his signature after months of intense wrangling over the details — particularly whether it would be tied to a larger spending plan that progressives insisted upon passing alongside it. But in the end it wasn’t really those progressives who provided the key votes, but rather the 13 Republicans. The final vote count was 228 to 206, meaning if no Republicans had voted for the bill, it wouldn’t have passed.

Those 13 defections may have all but sealed the fate of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), especially if Republicans manage to retake the majority in the 2022 midterm elections.

The sniping began immediately after the infrastructure bill passed with GOP support, and the right-wing of the party wasn’t shy about expressing their disgust:

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) issued a statement which read in part:

“That 13 House Republicans provided the votes needed to pass this is absurd.”

The ever-histrionic Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) went on a tweet storm, threatening to do everything but call down a plague of frogs and locusts on the nation:

Keep in mind that McCarthy clearly misread what was building inside the House GOP caucus, saying earlier this week that he expected the infrastructure was doomed to failure:

While McCarthy previously kept his powder dry on whipping against the bill, he ultimately pushed for his members to vote against it. As recently as last week, McCarthy said, “I don’t expect few, if any, to vote for it, if it comes to the floor today.” In another interview, he was asked about the infrastructure bill and said, “It will fail.”

It did not fail. McCarthy and the GOP leadership did. And that alone tells you Republicans are in disarray. That doesn’t bode well for their plans to retake the majority a year from now.

Oh, and there’s also a human infrastructure bill headed down the tracks. It could come up for a vote as soon as next week.

The downfall of Kevin McCarthy, meanwhile, is almost complete.

 

Categories
Elections GOP Politics WTF?!

McCarthy And Scalise Directly Implicated In The Plot To Overturn 2020 Election

The more we learn about the elaborate plan to make sure Donald Trump remained as president, the clearer it becomes that numerous individuals at various levels of the federal government were involved in an attempt to overturn the will of the voters and carry out a coup.

According to attorney Sidney Powell, both House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) were part of the plot, which also involved a court challenge that would be heard by one of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito.

Powell was a guest on “The Stew Peters Show,” and she revealed that McCarthy and Scalise had been tasked with denying Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from filing an amicus brief in the case which would have argued that the election was valid and should be certified by Congress:

“There had been inside goings-on in Congress whereby I believe it was Steve Scalise and McCarthy kept her from being an actual party. She wanted to work her way into the case, but somehow that didn’t happen. She got notice when we made our filing. She wanted to file an amicus brief, and then everything broke loose, and she had to speed up reconvening Congress to get the vote going before Justice Alito might issue an injunction.”

Powell even explained why Alito would be the judge in the case, which would eventually have been heard by the full Supreme Court if those loyal to Trump had been successful:

“Justice Alito was our circuit justice for that. And we were suing the vice president to follow the 12th Amendment as opposed to the Electoral College Act.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCAwS9HaLs&feature=emb_logo

Granted, Powell is not exactly the most reliable of sources considering the lies she’s already told about her role in the conspiracy to deny Joe Biden the presidency. But her accusations can easily be confirmed by a close look at both McCarthy and Scalise’s phone and email records. Those have been subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

Records from the Trump administration will also soon be in the hands of the House committee because President Joe Biden has made it clear he will not cite executive privilege to keep them hidden. Those, combined with the records from members of Congress who coordinated with Trump and his associates, will provide concrete proof of who was involved in the conspiracy.

Powell’s remarks are also more evidence that can be used by the Justice Department to charge those involved with federal crimes, including election interference and sedition.

Every single person who tried to keep Trump in office is part of a criminal conspiracy. They need to be charged, prosecuted, and given long sentences if they’re found guilty. That’s how we protect our republic and send a message to anyone who might think of trying something like this in the future.

 

Categories
Congress GOP

Matt Gaetz Publicly Humiliates Kevin McCarthy As The GOP Civil War Descends To The Gutter

Though they try to keep their disagreements behind closed doors most of the time, there’s a civil war taking place inside the Republican Party, with once faction representing the pragmatic but conservative view that’s traditional for the GOP and the other eagerly making common cause with domestic terror groups and insisting Donald Trump must be allowed to serve as president for as long as he wants.

In other words, it’s the pre-Trump GOP vs. the Neo-Fascist GOP.

One of the most controversial of the new Republicans is Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL), a man who seems to believe that it’s perfectly acceptable that he dated underage girls and took them across state lines for the purposes of having sex with them. For that, Gaetz is now facing life in prison if he’s indicted and convicted.

But there are also some Republicans who try to walk the line between the old GOP and the new version of the party. People like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA), who spoke with Donald Trump on the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and is worried details of that call will be provided to the House Select Committee investigating the riots.

Such was the topic for Gaetz on his podcast, Firebrand, and he noted that “McCarthy doesn’t have strong reactions to things. It’s not his style. Following the targeting of our members, he surprised and said this.”:

And yet, Gaetz then took a very real cheap shot at McCarthy:

“That’s some huffing and puffing indeed. No low T (testosterone) today. But how can we trust Kevin McCarthy to go beyond talking tough to Nancy Pelosi when he won’t even stand up to Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger? You see, Cheney and Kinzinger sit as Nancy Pelosi appointees on the January 6th committee. They’ve crossed the Rubicon, joined the other side.”

So McCarthy can’t be trusted because he won’t punish Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger? That means there’s a very real war taking place inside the GOP and they’re aiming their guns at each other. It’s a circular firing squad, and that won’t end well for Republicans.

How should we respond to this? We should applaud with glee and hope for more. The sooner the Trump-infested GOP destroys itself, the better for this country.

Categories
Congress Donald Trump Elections Joe Biden

MAGA Faithful Pillory Kevin McCarthy Online After He Admits Biden Was ‘Legitimately Elected’

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) did a complete 180 degree turn on Tuesday during an appearance on Fox News.

Speaking with Fox host Bret Baier, McCarthy was asked for his thoughts about failed, one-term former President Donald Trump’s continuing claims that he actually won the 2020 election and was cheated out of it, despite never providing a shred of evidence to support those assertions.

McCarthy told Baier:

“Joe Biden is the President of the United States. He legitimately got elected.”

McCarthy and Trump have what can best be called a love-hate relationship, as evidenced by reports that the two had a shouting match on the phone during the Capitol insurrection on January 6:

“‘When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol,’ Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wa., said in a statement posted to Twitter on Friday night.

“At one point during the phone call, McCarthy told Trump: ‘Who the f—k do you think you are talking to?’ according to a Republican lawmaker briefed on the conversation.”

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that McCarthy is ready to move on, especially since he probably fears Trump might try another run at the White House in 2024, provided he isn’t in prison at the time.

But the MAGA faithful were outraged by what McCarthy said, and they took to Twitter to vent their anger and shed their tears:

https://twitter.com/Loraleejiron1/status/1415073402960945153?s=20

https://twitter.com/edglomb/status/1415074719833939970?s=20

Trumper tears are so damn sweet.