Congress
Impeachment snafu prompts a friendly reminder to House Democratic aides
A top aide to Rep. Jerry Nadler reminded fellow Democratic staffers to let each other know when their bosses sign on to bills after several lawmakers removed themselves as cosponsors from Rep. Shri Thanedar’s impeachment resolution targeting President Donald Trump.
“Members can walk away with different impressions of a conversation, and a quick check-in with staff can go a long way in avoiding confusion,” the aide, Andrew Heineman, wrote in an Thursday email to all Democratic legislative directors obtained by Blue Light News. “I don’t think any of us want to learn that their boss was added to a bill that’s been introduced from a Google Alert.”
Thanedar (D-Mich.) introduced a resolution Monday to impeach Trump with four Democrats listed as cosponsors: Nadler of New York, plus Reps. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Robin Kelly of Illinois and Kweisi Mfume of Maryland. All four have since withdrawn as cosponsors and implied that they were mistakenly added to the legislation after conversations with Thanedar.
Thanedar’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“The Congresswoman was under the impression that the resolution was drafted and reviewed by experts from the House Judiciary Committee,” Kelly’s spokesperson said.
A Mfume spokesperson said he removed himself “because he was made aware it was not cleared by Democratic leadership and not fully vetted legally — and he preferred to err on the side of caution.”
Congress
Ed Martin, Trump’s controversial U.S. attorney pick, on thin ice in the Senate
President Trump’s pick to be Washington’s top prosecutor appears to be in trouble with Senate Republicans.
No GOP senator has said they will oppose Ed Martin to be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, a spot he currently fills in an acting capacity. But several are publicly raising concerns or refusing to say if they will vote for him — an unusual posture for senators who have been largely deferential to Trump’s nominees.
“I’m hearing that at least a couple members of the [Senate Judiciary] Committee have expressed some concerns about him,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is not a member of the panel.
The Judiciary Committee won’t hold a hearing on Martin’s nomination, in line with the panel’s precedent for U.S. attorney picks. Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a brief interview this week that he hasn’t yet determined when to schedule a vote to advance Martin, noting that members want to meet with him and that the committee is working through his responses to hundreds of submitted questions.
It’s not clear that Martin will be able to get through the committee, which is split 12-10 — meaning opposition from one GOP senator would be enough to deadlock the panel. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of the most vulnerable members up for reelection in 2026, expressed concerns over his previous comments minimizing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
“I’ll be meeting with him,” Tillis said. “We’ve just got to be very careful because this place suddenly becomes a target if we feel like we have a prosecutor who’s not inclined to prosecute those kinds of cases. So I just need to get comfortable.”
Asked Thursday if he thought Martin had the votes, Thune said “he’s got out of the committee first, so we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” If the panel deadlocks, Thune could still try to get Martin’s nomination to the floor, but it wouldn’t bode well for his chances of confirmation.
Senate Republicans haven’t formally rejected any of Trump’s nominees so far, and some hinted this week they were waiting to see if they would be forced to vote on him or if the White House would pull the nomination given the potential opposition. Given their 53-seat majority, four Senate Republicans would need to vote against him along with every Democrat and independent.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a leadership adviser who is on the Judiciary Committee, declined on Thursday to say if he would vote for Martin, adding, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Murkowski said she did not currently have a meeting scheduled with Martin, but that “if his nomination seems to be moving forward and it was clear that I was going to be in a position where I would have to vote on the floor — yeah, I would want to meet him.”
Martin has previously been critical of or called for primary challenges against some of the same Senate Republicans who now hold the fate of his nomination in their hands. Among the senators Martin has previously targeted are Susan Collins of Maine and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who would both likely be key votes if he gets to the floor.
But it’s his previous comments and actions related to Jan. 6 that have sparked the most public heartburn among GOP senators, including from Murkowski and Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah). Martin backed the “stop the steal” movement in the wake of the 2020 election, defended Jan. 6 rioters and has launched an investigation into the Justice Department’s charges against some of those who participated in the riot.
Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.
Congress
Crockett starts stumping for Oversight post, telling colleagues she’s ‘made for the moment’
Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas has started pitching fellow Democrats on a run for the party’s top Oversight Committee position, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Crockett’s entreaties — playing out in phone calls, text messages and floor conversations — mark the beginning of a contested race to succeed Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) as Oversight’s ranking member. Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts is also seeking the job, though Connolly — who announced plans to step aside after suffering a recurrence of esophageal cancer — has not yet formally done so.
Crockett has told other lawmakers that she’s “made for the moment,” the people said, an apparent reference to the desire among Democratic voters for more forceful resistance to President Donald Trump.
She told Blue Light News in a text message that, while there isn’t a vacancy, “knowing that Rep Connolly doesn’t plan to seek re-election & knowing that our oversight powers are broad, I’m ready to shine a light on the very dark things taking place in our country under this administration.”
She added, “I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I’m not interested in leading our investigative body while also communicating & educating the country on our findings.”
Semafor first reported that Crockett intended to seek the top Oversight post.
Crockett could be part of a crowded field of younger progressive Democrats who seek the job, including Reps. Robert Garcia of California, Ro Khanna of California and Maxwell Frost of Florida.
But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York could clear the field if she chooses to run. She lost to Connolly when she ran for the Oversight job last year and has since said she’s “weighing” a bid to run.
Congress
What Wall Street is watching in the GOP megabill
Congressional Republicans are rushing to advance the crown jewel of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda — a sweeping tax, energy and border package that they hope will be a boon to businesses and offset the tariff-induced economic turmoil of recent weeks.
But financial firms are watching warily as they lobby lawmakers not to turn Wall Street into a pay-for in the reconciliation package.
A variety of proposals that could eliminate tax breaks used by financial institutions are on the table as Republicans look to pay for tax cuts that Trump has promised. The coming weeks are poised to test GOP lawmakers’ willingness to defy some of their traditional allies in the business world to deliver the “one big, beautiful bill” Trump wants.
The House Financial Services Committee — which oversees Wall Street and its regulators — voted along party lines late Wednesday to approve its portion of the reconciliation package after a nine-hour markup. The legislation, which will be wrapped into the broader reconciliation package, would slash the amount of funding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can get by almost 60 percent and fold the U.S.’s top audit watchdog, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, into the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Democrats on the panel threw up procedural hurdles to slow the meeting down and offered dozens of amendments that Republicans voted down.
Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said he expects the savings produced by the legislation to exceed the $1 billion in cuts that the panel was required to produce by a budget resolution adopted by both chambers of Congress. But those savings remain a small fraction of what Republicans need to produce to pay for the Trump tax cuts. All eyes are on Congress’ tax-writing committees — House Ways and Means and Senate Finance — which are considering an array of more controversial savings proposals.
Several targets that could touch financial services firms are on the table. Tax writers are expected to release an initial proposal in the coming weeks, but the dynamics could change as the reconciliation bill moves forward and lawmakers look for additional savings.
Most controversially, the Ways and Means panel is weighing whether to close the so-called carried interest loophole, a controversial tax break that gives favorable treatment to the profits earned by private equity firms, hedge funds and venture capital investors. The latest signals suggest Hill Republicans may be souring on the idea, but conversations among tax writers are ongoing. Any effort to kill the tax break would be met with opposition from more business-friendly members, including on Financial Services. Hill told MM last week that the policy “is a major source of economic growth, jobs, that impacts every community in the country — it’s not a loophole.”
Hill and other Financial Services Republicans are also pushing tax writers not to strip municipal bonds of their tax-exempt status. They wrote in a letter to Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith last month that the exemption is “a critical tool that has underpinned American infrastructure and community development for over a century.”
Finally, the U.S.’s credit union lobby is playing defense as lawmakers face calls to strip the institutions of their tax-exempt status — a major lobbying push for community banks. Jim Nussle, the president of America’s Credit Unions and a former Republican lawmaker who chaired the House Budget Committee in the early 2000s, said the industry is “in a strong position going into this.”
But some credit union advocates — like lobbyists representing other segments of the financial services industry — worry that a last-minute deal could put them on the chopping block.
“We take nothing for granted,” Nussle said.
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