Congress
How AOC says she would approach Democrats’ top Oversight job
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s bid for the top Democratic Oversight Committee job could give her one of the most visible perches in Congress as the party tries to fight President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda.
In her Friday letter to Democratic colleagues, the 35-year-old progressive sketched out her vision for the panel’s Democrats as they brace for another term in the political wilderness — the minority in both chambers of Congress. She’ll be running against Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who launched his bid earlier this week.
“We must balance our focus on the incoming president’s corrosive actions and corruption with a tangible fight to make life easier for America’s working class,” she wrote. “I know firsthand how the Majority uses their chaos to confuse, disorient, and distract the public’s attention away from their disastrous agenda. We cannot and will not allow that to happen. I will lead by example by always keeping the lives of everyday Americans at the center of our work.”
The Oversight Committee is home to some of the House’s biggest partisan fights, with both parties typically stocking the panel with fighters who will target their political enemies. Ocasio-Cortez first joined Congress during the latter half of Trump’s first presidential term and gained notoriety for her pointed questioning of committee witnesses and sparring with Trump officials.
Under the GOP majority, the panel was at the center of some of Republicans’ most-high profile, and most-criticized, investigations, including a months-long impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden that focused largely on the business deals of his family members. And next Congress it will be in the driver’s seat as Republicans jockey to coordinate with Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to cut federal spending.
In the minority, Democrats have limited tools at their disposal to block Republican actions on the committee. While the GOP will have the ability to call witnesses and subpoena documents, Democrats won’t have much in the way of real power. They can slow things down with procedural roadblocks, but their most effective tool aligns with one of Ocasio-Cortez’s strengths: earning media attention by blasting the majority party’s antics.
Current Oversight ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), for example, has focused on the business deals of Trump’s family members as a counterpoint to the GOP’s impeachment inquiry. And Ocasio-Cortez, in her letter, said Democrats need to “focus on the Committee’s strong history of both holding administrations accountable and taking on the economic precarity and inequality that is challenging the American way of life.”
Ocasio-Cortez herself has a prominent following from younger, diverse people and is known to use her major influence on social media to explain her stances on policy and political issues. She has a specific style and effectiveness at hearings, resulting in key moments that have repeatedly gone viral. Her ability to create high-profile moments in hearings has even won begrudging admiration from some Republicans, who believe she’s effective even as they strongly disagree with most of her ideological stances.
But it’s not the American electorate she needs to win over to get the top Democratic spot on Oversight. House Democrats’ powerful Steering and Policy Committee, which handles panel assignments, is expected to start considering contested committee slots in two weeks. The panel will hold secret ballots to recommend leaders to the full caucus, which will then officially vote on who will lead the party on panels.
Both Ocasio-Cortez and Connolly have been quietly canvassing their fellow lawmakers as they’ve launched their bids. The full Steering and Policy Committee hasn’t yet been named. Ocasio-Cortez could likely count on influential blocs of support in the party, like members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Progressive Caucus, while Connolly could get backing from senior members of the caucus across various factions.
Connolly, in his own letter to colleagues earlier this week, leaned into his history on the committee, willingness to work with and listen to other members and ability to battle with Trump as he works to lock down votes ahead of the Steering meeting.
“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is a beat I know well, and right now we need an expert who can parry the worst Republican attacks on our institutions and deliver reform where it is necessary and needed,” he wrote.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats have submitted their latest proposal for pairing Department of Homeland Security funding with immigration enforcement policy changes.
“Democrats sent Republicans our counteroffer on legislation to reopen DHS, pay TSA workers, while at the same time rein in ICE with commonsense guardrails,” Schumer said, adding that the offer “contains some of the very same asks Democrats have been talking about now for months” on changes to immigration enforcement tactics.
Schumer met with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Wednesday to discuss the funding stalemate.
President Donald Trump called on Congress Wednesday to quickly extend a key surveillance program amid a Republican rebellion that is threatening to tank the effort ahead of an April 20 deadline.
“When used properly, [the program] is an effective tool to keep Americans safe,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Wednesday. “For these reasons, I have called for a clean 18-month extension.”
He emphasized that restrictions included in the last reauthorization of the Section 702 spy program should remain in place. Trump also argued that the ongoing war against Iran should lead Congress to act quickly given the program, which allows intelligence agencies to monitor communications abroad without a warrant, is “extremely important to our Military.”
“With the ongoing successful Military activities against the Terrorist Iranian Regime, it is more important than ever that we remain vigilant, PROTECT our Homeland, Troops, and Diplomats stationed abroad, and maintain our ability to quickly stop bad actors seeking to cause harm to our People and our Country,” Trump said.
Blue Light News previously reported that the White House had privately communicated Trump’s support for a straight extension to key congressional leaders.
Speaker Mike Johnson pushed House Republican hard-liners who want new restrictions against domestic surveillance to back the extension Trump wants, including in a closed-door House GOP meeting Wednesday morning. Several Republicans still raised concerns about the “clean” reauthorization plan, including Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia.
President Donald Trump maintained government documents relevant to his business interests after he left office, according to an internal memo from former special counsel Jack Smith’s office.
The memo, viewed by Blue Light News, was transmitted by the Justice Department to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees earlier this month. It was turned over in response to Republican-led probes into the investigations Smith led during the Biden administration surrounding Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office, as well as his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
“Process is very much ongoing but the FBI has already since found both — that classified documents were commingled with documents created after Trump left office and that there are classified documents that would be pertinent to certain business interests,” stated the memo, dated Jan. 13, 2023.
The second volume of Smith’s report on his team’s investigative findings, which centers around the classified documents case, is currently under a court-ordered seal. Democrats have been pushing for DOJ to release it in hopes that it could reveal damaging information about the president. New information about Trump’s conduct, unearthed in this memo, could only heighten the pressure on the administration to make the full report public.
It also could inform questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is due to invite Smith to testify in a public hearing on his Trump investigations in the coming months.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, alleged in a new letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi dated Tuesday that the memo suggests Trump “may have sold out our national security to enrich himself.”
Raskin also alleged that the DOJ appeared to have violated the judicial order compelling the seal of the second volume of Smith’s report in handing over some materials to Congress, including grand jury material.
A Justice Department spokesperson, in a statement Wednesday, rejected Raskin’s claims and called his move a “political stunt.”
The spokesperson said that it was unsurprising that Smith’s “files contain salacious and untrue claims about President Trump,” and the files handed over to Congress did not violate the court order, nor did they disclose relevant grand jury material.
“We understand that Jamie Raskin, much like Jack Smith, is blinded by hatred of President Trump,” the spokesperson wrote. “However, he needs to get his facts straight — this Department of Justice is the most transparent in history in part because of our efforts to expose the weaponization of the Biden administration in full compliance with the law and the court.”
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, also in a statement maintained that Trump “did nothing wrong” and called Raskin’s actions “pathetic.”
A spokesperson for House Judiciary Democrats pointed to the irony in the Trump administration claiming to be “the most transparent in history” when it was refusing to release Smith’s findings.
“Another day, another manufactured outrage from the left,” a spokesperson for House Judiciary Republicans countered.
The 2023 memo transmitted to Congress also stated that Trump maintained documents that were so sensitive that only few had access to them beyond the president, and the fact that he had materials relevant to his business interests suggested “a motive for retaining them.”
“These new disclosures suggest that Donald Trump stole documents so sensitive that only six people in the entire U.S. government had access to them,” Raskin wrote in his letter to Bondi. “It is time for you to stop the cover-up and allow the American people to know what secrets he betrayed and how he may have cashed in on them.”
Gregory Svirnovskiy contributed to this report.
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