Congress
Capitol agenda: Insider trading is Mike Johnson’s next Epstein
Speaker Mike Johnson’s September to-do list is getting tougher by the day.
As Blue Light News scooped Tuesday, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) is planning to file a discharge petition to force a floor vote on banning stock trading by members of Congress. Like the parallel push for a vote on releasing the Epstein files, it’s poised to pit Johnson against rank-and-file Republicans who are thirsty to challenge elite corruption – whether their leadership likes it or not.
Luna’s move puts Johnson in a bind.
Johnson has signaled that he’s personally supportive of restricting stock trading by lawmakers. But allowing a vote to happen would trigger backlash from many fellow Republicans — and for what? The bill probably wouldn’t go anywhere in the Senate.
Yet if Johnson stands in the way, he risks fueling a narrative triggered by the Epstein fight that he’s protecting the rich and powerful and against transparency.
Luna has a ways to go before she gets the 218 signatures needed to force a vote. But she has some political momentum on her side. The House Ethics Committee said Friday that Rep. Mike Kelly’s wife bought shares in steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs after Kelly’s office learned that a Commerce Department action could benefit the company. Kelly has said he and his family “look forward to putting this distraction behind us.”
Johnson’s saving grace might be a GOP division over the right approach to executing a crackdown. Lawmakers have been meeting for months to try to hammer out a consensus bill, with some members concerned the process isn’t going anywhere. Luna wants to force a vote just on a bill from Rep. Tim Burchett. Senate Homeland Security will mark up its own stock trading restrictions Wednesday.
Rep. Chip Roy, who could play a pivotal role in any effort to derail Luna’s push as a member of the Rules Committee, is among those leading bipartisan talks on a potential compromise around a broader bill.
“Since I introduced the first bill on this subject, we’ve built a coalition in support of a comprehensive and strong solution to end stock trading for members of Congress,” Roy said. “We’re working over August to merge various ideas and get Republican leadership to move on it. We gave them time to finish the [megabill] — that time is passed.”
Rep. Seth Magaziner, the Rhode Island Democrat co-leading legislation with Roy, said he believes they are “quite close” on a consensus bill coming together — possibly in August. But it would be for “Congress only,” and not extend any stock trading ban to the president and vice president, as some Democrats are pushing.
Lawmakers involved in the talks are also aiming for legislative branch enforcement, which is missing from the Burchett bill that relies on Justice Department enforcement. Burchett’s legislation also doesn’t address when lawmakers who currently own stocks would have to pay taxes after divesting.
“Where you’ll start losing Democrats is if the bill doesn’t have teeth,” said Magaziner, who argues that the Burchett bill alone will have problems drawing enough support from both sides of the aisle.
What else we’re watching:
— Schumer’s Epstein announcement: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Senate Democrats plan to hold a press conference Wednesday afternoon on a new effort to get the “full Epstein files.”
— Trump nominee staredown: Senate GOP leaders are threatening to rewrite the chamber’s rulebook if Democrats don’t agree to expedite dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees before August recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Blue Light News that Republicans could revisit steps they took in 2018 to shorten debate time between nominees.
— Commerce votes on TSA bill: Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz said he’s “confident” his committee will approve legislation Wednesday that would put new guardrails on facial recognition technology used by the TSA. Travel lobbyists are raising concerns that the bill would make it more difficult to ensure airline passengers’ safety.
Mia McCarthy, Jordain Carney, Calen Razor and Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.
Congress
MTG asks Trump to pardon George Santos
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene asked President Donald Trump on Monday to grant clemency to former Republican Rep. George Santos, the notorious fabulist who began his seven-year prison sentence last month.
Greene, a close Trump ally and conservative firebrand, said she sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking them to present a case to Trump for clemency consideration for the former New York member of Congress.
In the letter, she said Santos’ sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges “extends far beyond what is warranted.”
“George Santos has taken responsibility. He’s shown remorse. It’s time to correct this injustice,” Greene said on X.
Santos, who pleaded guilty in April and reported to federal prison in New Jersey on July 25, became a household name shortly after he was elected to Congress in 2022, when The New York Times reported several outlandish lies he told about his backstory during his congressional campaign.
The details of Santos’ falsehoods, his misuse of campaign funds and falsifying financial records were ultimately compiled in a scathing House Ethics Committee report in 2023, triggering a House vote to expel Santos later that year.
When asked on Friday about possibly pardoning Santos, Trump acknowledged the former New York congressman’s wrongdoing but didn’t rule out granting him clemency.
“Nobody’s talked to me about it,” he said in an interview with Newsmax.
Santos has repeatedly said he’s asked the Trump administration to consider pardoning him. In a social media post weeks before he reported to prison, he claimed that House Speaker Mike Johnson had “blocked” the Trump administration from granting him clemency.
While presidents in recent history have waited until the end of their terms to sign pardons and commutations, Trump has already granted clemency to many people in the first year of his term — some of whom, like Santos, hadn’t completed their sentences.
On his first day in office, Trump granted clemency to hundreds of people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Since then, he’s issued dozens more pardons and commutations, including to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and to Todd and Julie Chrisley, the reality TV stars convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion.
Congress
CBO: Republican megabill to cost $4.1T, due to higher borrowing costs
Interest rates will be higher over the next decade because of the GOP’s megabill and drive up borrowing costs even for the federal government, Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper predicts in a new report released Monday.
In a final “dynamic” analysis of the bill President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the measure will increase the federal deficit by $4.1 trillion over a decade. Because the bill’s red ink is not offset by more spending cuts or new revenue, CBO found, the legislation will drive up interest rates.
That increase could affect investors and regular people getting loans for a range of assets, from cars to homes. But it will also hike costs for the federal government in a real way, according to thebudget office — increasing interest payments on the nearly $37 trillion national debt by $718 billion over a decade.
That’s higher than the $440 billion in extra borrowing costs CBO estimated in June, before Republicans reworked many of the bill’s policies to abide by Senate rules and woo the support of GOP lawmakers who were reluctant to vote in favor of the final product.
Congressional Republicans largely dismissed CBO’s deficit and interest rate warnings in the days before clearing the bill for President Donald Trump’s signature, arguing that the legislation would juice the economy far more than forecasters have ultimately predicted.
Congress
Musk-linked PAC spends big to promote newly enacted megabill
Building America’s Future, a PAC that has been supported by Elon Musk, is shelling out more than a million dollars to promote recent White House wins, including a GOP domestic policy package the Tesla CEO and former Trump administration employee once called “a disgusting abomination.”
The 30-second ad, titled “Independence,” is set to run nationally on Fox News and will congratulate President Donald Trump on the passage of Republicans’ “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which extends his 2017 tax cuts alongside other GOP wins at the expense of nearly $1 trillion in coming Medicaid cuts.
“This Independence Day, President Trump and Congress made the working family tax cuts law,” the spot, which is to debut Monday, will say. “Freeing Americans from taxes on their tips and overtime, doubling the child tax credit, and cutting taxes for seniors. Republicans know that our country is better off when working families keep more of what they earn. Now, they will.”
Musk, who has donated extensively to BAF, assailed the megabill when it reached Congress. Calling it “utterly insane and destructive,” he promised to fund primary challengers to all Republicans who voted for the bill and declared the arrival of a new America Party” after Trump signed it.
As the pair’s rift escalated in June, Trump responded by threatening his former backer’s government contracts. And Musk, the world’s richest man, perhaps presciently wrote that Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
But the PAC that Musk has backed doesn’t agree with his assessment of the megabill.
“President Trump, Leader John Thune, and Speaker Mike Johnson all showed tremendous strength and vision to get historic tax cuts for working families across the finish line this summer, and their remarkable achievement will put America on a path to prosperity for years to come,” said Generra Peck, senior advisor to the PAC. “At Building America’s Future, we could not be more proud to stand with an administration and GOP Congress that is truly building a brighter future for America.”
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