Congress

A ‘lot of interest’ in Russia sanctions, Thune says

Published

12 months ago

July 8, 2025

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday that he hopes to have an announcement soon on the fate of a long-stalled bill to impose new sanctions targeting Russia.

“We’ll have more to say about that later this week,” Thune told reporters, adding that there’s a “lot of interest” in moving the bill authored by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Thune has been looking for a clear signal from President Donald Trump that he would support the legislation, which has more than 80 supporters. Trump opened the door to the legislation earlier Tuesday, saying that he’s “looking at it very strongly” as he aired fresh frustrations with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing military campaign in Ukraine.

The sanctions legislation is not expected to be on the floor this week but could be brought to the floor before the scheduled August recess.

Congress

Trump’s Iran endgame grates on Hill Republicans

Published

9 minutes ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The White House would prefer Congress handle the Iran war’s endgame something like this: Pony up, and don’t ask too many questions.

That approach is grating on many congressional Republicans, who are chafing at the idea that President Donald Trump’s administration is asking for hundreds of billions of dollars in fresh military funding without briefing most of Congress on the cease-fire agreement Trump signed last week.

As House lawmakers returned to the Capitol this week for the first time since the “memorandum of understanding” was inked, even GOP members who are generally supportive of the president said they had a hard time understanding why administration had not been more forthcoming with details on the agreement and the nuclear talks it sets up.

Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, a senior appropriator, told reporters “it wouldn’t hurt” to get a briefing from Trump officials this week “because mostly what I hear is what I hear from the news.”

Even ahead of briefing, a swath of angrier Republicans has grown livid at the text of the Trump-signed memo, which includes an agreement to lift U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil sales and pursue a $300 billion Iranian “reconstruction” plan in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the hostilities.

Vice President JD Vance told reporters last week that the administration was “quite confident that we can temporarily lift those sanctions without going to Congress and seeking their approval.”

“The Administration acts like they want a deal much more than the Ayatollah regime,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said in a text message, joining multiple hawkish senators in expressing dismay. “Committing $300B in reconstruction, sanctions relief, pulling back forces near Iran and putting pressure on Israel looks like weakness.”

Trump sought to quiet the internal skeptics Tuesday, telling reporters that anyone who has been critical of the deal “has to be educated, even if they’re friends of mine.” He is set to travel to Capitol Hill Wednesday to sign a bipartisan housing bill and meet with restless GOP senators who may press him for a defense of the agreement.

But the vast majority of House members have not heard anything beyond administration talking points nearly a week after details of the memorandum first emerged. The White House sent the full text of the agreement to Congress Thursday — after Trump had signed it and administration officials had briefed reporters on the document.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters Tuesday he expects House members will receive a briefing on Iran this week. Later, Johnson indicated in an interview a planned briefing from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to a select group of House Republicans Wednesday was the only briefing lawmakers should expect for now.

“The secretary is the ultimate authority on it, so I’m sure he’ll provide a lot of information,” Johnson said of Hegseth, who was not directly involved in the peace negotiations.

He did not commit in the interview to additional briefings for a wider swath of lawmakers: “We’ll have to see. I mean, we’ll see what the secretary does, and then evaluate after that.”

Some White House officials, including Vance, briefed select groups of GOP lawmakers last week on the agreement, including party leaders and top lawmakers on foreign affairs committees. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a GOP defense hawk who was initially skeptical of the deal, said he spoke on the phone with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East. The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), said his panel has not been briefed on the agreement.

The grumbling from Hill Republicans is shaping up to be a major pain point as Trump officials ramp up pressure to approve new Pentagon spending. A top Defense official told key lawmakers last week that a $78 billion emergency infusion is needed to pay for the Iran war — on top of the $350 billion in defense funding Trump has demanded Republicans deliver in a new party-line bill.

A formal request for emergency spending could land on Capitol Hill as soon as this week, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) hammered the idea Monday, telling reporters that Trump and Hegseth are responsible for “Operation Epic Failure.”

“Their reckless and costly war of choice has been a disaster for the American people,” Jeffries said. “And the notion that they’ll come up to Capitol Hill to try to get an additional $80 billion to continue to waste taxpayer money on an endless war in the Middle East that Donald Trump promised he wouldn’t start, but would stop, is beyond reckless.”

One senior Republican involved in the talks about the party-line bill said Trump’s defense funding request is “tough” for Republicans to deliver, given the pushback from various corners of the House GOP over the size of the ask and the debate over how to pay for it.

GOP Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) issued a blunt warning in a Tuesday X post: “The Pentagon wants $891 billion this year and still can’t pass a clean audit. … My rule is simple: show me you passed an audit, then we can talk about more money.”

Burlison is among the front-runners to be the next chair of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus and is a member of the Republican Study Committee. Hegseth is set to appear at the invitation of the latter group Wednesday to make the case for the new military spending requests. But he, like Trump, could face sharp questions about the peace deal, which many Republicans believe is all too similar to the 2015 agreement Barack Obama brokered as president.

“I’m always willing to give peace a chance,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), an RSC member who is planning to attend the Hegseth briefing, said. But he noted the U.S. needs to make sure that Iran doesn’t drive a “wedge” between America and Israel.

Stutzman also said he was looking forward to the Defense secretary providing a detailed “fiscal update” of how much the Pentagon has spent on the war and how much artillery needs to be backfilled, while adding that will need to have “hard conversations” about finding offsets to any new military spending.

Rep. Tom Barrett, a Republican facing a highly competitive race against another military veteran for his Michigan seat, said in an interview he was concerned that the administration had not been more forthcoming in answering lawmakers’ questions.

He said he anticipated those attending the Hegseth briefing would press the secretary on the Iran agreement in addition to the administration’s funding request.

Republicans are also internally divided over whether Congress needs to vote on any final nuclear agreement the Trump administration might reach with Iran in the coming months, as would seem to be required under a 2015 law passed as the Obama deal was coming together. The memorandum sets out a 60-day period for further talks.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) argued just hours after Trump announced the initial agreement with Iran that a vote wouldn’t be “necessary.” A few minutes later, Graham declared in response that there would be “no way” Congress would forgo a vote on any final nuclear deal.

Weighing heavily on vulnerable GOP incumbents is that the 60-day window expires in August, just weeks before the midterm elections. Trump has threatened to go back to widespread bombing against Iran if the talks don’t produce a satisfactory result.

Johnson, asked how this was different from Obama’s deal, defended Trump and reiterated that there was no deal yet.

“You’ve got to allow this to play out,” he said, praising Trump for having “handled Iran.”

He added that he was “heartened” that gas prices had dipped and mostly declined to weigh in on the sanctions relief Trump promised, noting “there’s a lot of moving parts right now” and that he has “always been a supporter of strong sanctions against Iran.”

“I’ve got enough to do to manage the House over here,” he said. “I’m not going to tell the administration how to negotiate that.”

Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.

Congress

Bill Gates denied association with Epstein’s crimes in closed-door Hill interview

Published

3 hours ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Tech mogul Bill Gates told the House Oversight Committee he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s prior sex crime conviction but that he did not know Epstein was continuing to engage in misconduct at the time of their acquaintance, according to a transcript of his testimony.

In his transcribed interview with the panel earlier this month as part of its ongoing Epstein investigation, Gates recounted details of his dealings with Epstein over the years — which extended from 2011, when he was first introduced to Epstein, to 2014, when he realized Epstein would not make good on his promise to steer donors towards Gates’ philanthropic work.

“I was aware that he had a criminal conviction,” Gates said, according to the transcript. “I knew that it was of a sexual nature, but, no, I don’t think I … dug into the specifics, although I probably should have.”

Gates’ decision to shrug off the conviction from 2008 underscored the extent to which many of those who chose to associate with the disgraced financier opted to ignore potential warning signs of impropriety. It was not until more than a decade after his first brush with law enforcement that Epstein was arrested on federal sex crimes charges; he died by suicide in jail in 2019 while his case was pending.

Gates’ relationship with Epstein has drawn new scrutiny since materials released by the Justice Department revealed new details about their relationship. In one draft correspondence contained in the so-called Epstein files, Epstein appears to have written and sent to himself a letter to Gates, where he alleged that Gates asked Epstein to “delete the emails regarding [his] std” and give him antibiotics to “surreptitiously give to Melinda [French Gates].”

Gates has denied that allegation and, during his interview with the Oversight Committee, Gates questioned whether Epstein was attempting to blackmail him.

“Now that I see the January release of documents, it appears that in many cases he, at least in emails to himself, was sort of rehearsing how either he or he coaching someone else might choose to blackmail me, but none of those messages were ever sent to me,” Gates said. “You know, I never paid Jeffrey Epstein anything.”

He also said that Epstein “certainly wasn’t a friend,” and insisted he never engaged in sexual conduct or received massages from individuals introduced to him by Epstein. And despite knowledge of his 2008 conviction, Gates said he was unaware at the time of their relationship that Epstein was a registered sex offender. He also said he never visited Epstein’s island.

The Oversight Committee also on Tuesday released a transcript of its June interview with Lesley Groff, one of Epstein’s former assistants who was among those named as a potential co-conspirator as part of Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement in 2007. She was never charged with any wrongdoing and, according to the transcript, recalled that law enforcement’s decision came as a surprise.

“I am not a conspirator, and I never would have agreed to this language,” she said, according to the transcript. “Their unilateral decision to label me as a potential conspirator remains my scarlet letter.”

Like others who have come before the panel, Groff claimed she was unaware of his crimes during the time of her employment and that Epstein, following his 2008 conviction, said that he was “set up.” Groff said she believed him, so she continued to work for him.

“I also saw the same VIPs continue to surround Epstein after his conviction,” she explained as a rationale for maintaining her own ties.

For instance, Groff told the Oversight Committee she “would connect phone calls” between President Donald Trump and Epstein multiple times a year.

Trump has not been charged with any wrongdoing tied to Epstein, but his relationship with the financier has raised eyebrows while fueling speculation that the administration has been working to cover up its connections — including by pushing back against making the Epstein files public last year and then slow-walking their release.

The Justice Department has defended its handling of the files’ release, and Trump has maintained he broke off his relationship with Epstein years before his death.

Congress

Senate votes to halt Iran war despite Trump’s push for peace deal

Published

5 hours ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate on Tuesday voted to cut off the U.S. military campaign against Iran, handing a fresh loss to President Donald Trump despite his attempts to convince lawmakers and the public that a deal to end the war is at hand.

Four Republicans broke ranks to help approve a resolution to block further military action unless it is green-lighted by Congress.

The war powers measure is largely symbolic — the resolution cleared Tuesday doesn’t go to the president to sign or veto. But the bipartisan 50-48 vote is a damaging milestone for the Trump administration: Both the Senate and House have now weighed in against the Middle East conflict that’s stretched on for more than 100 days. The same measure passed the House in early June after months of close calls.