Biden’s next big headache

By Calder McHugh

Speaker Kevin McCarthy celebrates with the gavel after being elected Speaker. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

OVERSIGHT OVERLORD — In his first remarks as Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy offered a look at one of the new Republican majority’s priorities, saying “it’s time for us to be a check and provide some balance on Biden’s policies.”

Then the House approved the formation today of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

Now, the GOP has been handed another political gift to further advance its oversight agenda: documents marked classified were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, dating from President Joe Biden’s time as VP, which reportedly included materials on foreign countries. The finding comes on the heels of the FBI’s August raid of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to forcibly seize classified documents from the former president’s possession.

McCarthy was quick to draw the comparison, saying the new information on Biden’s documents suggests Democrats “overplayed their hand.” Yet there appears to be one important distinction: the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago after Trump reportedly ignored a subpoena for the classified materials, while Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber says when personal attorneys for Biden found the vice presidential documents on Nov. 2, the counsel’s office notified the National Archives, which subsequently took possession of the materials the next day.

Biden said today at a news conference in Mexico he “was surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken to that office.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland has now assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago, John Lausch, to review the case, and the House Oversight committee has already launched an investigation into the documents. In a letter to the White House counsel today, new Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said the committee “is concerned that President Biden has compromised (intelligence) sources and methods with his own mishandling of classified documents.”

To get a better sense of the House GOP’s investigative priorities in the new Congress — and a look into the new investigations that could spawn from the handling of these classified documents — Nightly spoke with POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney, a reporter who covers Congress and legal affairs. This interview has been edited.

How much of a priority will investigating Biden be for the new Republican-led Congress?

The new Republican Congress knows that legislating isn’t really going to be possible in a divided Congress with a Democratic president, so the most significant thing they achieved were committee gavels that come with subpoena power. They just watched the Jan. 6 select committee mount an extraordinary investigation that not only unearthed damaging facts about Donald Trump, but had an impact in the midterms, convincing voters that the threats to democracy were significant. Now, Republicans say they intend to use that subpoena power to delve into some of the issues that have animated their base.

What sorts of issues are they hoping to use that subpoena power to uncover? Do you have a sense of what their plans are for the next six months or so?

It’s wide-ranging, everything you can imagine — from genuine policy issues related to illegal immigration and the border, Covid relief fraud and the Afghanistan withdrawal to more red meat issues for the base. I’m particularly interested in the newly established Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which was a key demand of Speaker McCarthy’s hardline detractors. That one will look at ongoing criminal investigations, the FBI, the intelligence community, social media companies, etc.

What does the news that classified documents linked to Biden from his time as vice president were found in an office of his do to that agenda? 

I’m certain the Oversight Committee will play a role in looking into those documents, and potentially this new subcommittee as well. It’s a legitimate issue worth exploring, and one that I have the sense is more common than people realize — the mishandling of classified documents. The Republicans were particularly animated because they used it as a chance to compare the situation to the criminal jeopardy that Trump is facing because of his own issue with classified documents. There’s just not enough information yet to really compare these cases, and at the very least, we know Biden’s team returned the documents without requiring a subpoena or drawn-out negotiations.

Will Republicans demand a special counsel? Will that change how the DOJ conducts its business around this case? And how much of a thorn in Biden’s side does this have the potential to turn into?

The main caveat is, we don’t know very many details about the Biden documents. Whatever Republicans say about it isn’t going to influence the Justice Department, but they will have to contend with the obvious questions about why Trump’s conduct warrants criminal scrutiny and Biden’s does not — if it does not. Politically, it presents an optics problem, but legally that theoretically shouldn’t matter. The biggest difference appears to be that when the Biden team discovered these documents, they turned them over immediately, it didn’t require a Justice Department subpoena and negotiations that dragged on for months.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @calder_mchugh.

Far-right media personality Anthime Gionet, also known as Baked Alaska, arrives for his sentencing. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

— Judge sentences ‘Baked Alaska’ to 60 days in jail for Jan. 6 conduct: A federal judge sentenced pro-Trump livestreamer Anthime “Baked Alaska” Gionet to 60 days in prison for his actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, calling his conduct “shocking” amid the chaos of the mob. U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden said Gionet made a “mockery of democracy,” live streaming while he marauded through the Capitol, swearing at Capitol Police officers trying to force him to leave and entering the private offices of two senators. More than 900 people have been charged for their actions amid the Capitol mob, a range of criminal offenses that include simple trespassing to seditious conspiracy.

— Yellen to stay on as Treasury chief through Biden’s term: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has told Biden she will remain in her post for the next two years as the White House faces growing challenges including the need to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, people familiar with the matter said. Yellen, whose decision has been the subject of internal chatter for months, agreed to a request from Biden to stay on in the administration’s top economic policymaking post during a recent one-on-one meeting, said two senior White House officials, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss a personnel issue.

— U.S. will train Ukrainians on Patriot system in Oklahoma as soon as next week: The U.S. military is set to begin training Ukrainian forces to operate and maintain the Patriot missile defense system at an Army base in Oklahoma as soon as next week, the Pentagon announced today. The U.S. will train 90 to 100 Ukrainians on the system over the course of the next several months, according to Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder. The training will take place at Fort Sill, Okla., where the primary training school for U.S. and allied forces on Patriot is located, he said. The course will include classroom instruction, time in a simulator and exposure to the system itself.

STRIKE IN SOLEDAR — Russia is throwing waves of Wagner Group mercenaries into mass attacks on the salt-mining town of Soledar in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said, as Moscow looks to envelop the strategic front-line town of Bakhmut, writes Veronika Melkozerova.

“The enemy literally steps on the corpses of their own soldiers, massively uses artillery, volley fire systems, and mortars, covering even their own soldiers with fire,” Maliar said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today confirmed Russia’s invading army was concentrating its greatest efforts on Soledar.

The Russians need to capture Soledar to encircle Bakhmut, 10 kilometers to the south.

Moscow’s forces have been storming Bakhmut since mid-summer in a bid to disrupt Ukrainian communications, Britain’s defense ministry said in a statement. “Part of the fighting has focused on entrances to the 200km-long disused salt mine tunnels which run underneath the district. Both sides are likely concerned that they could be used for infiltration behind their lines,” the ministry added.

Bakhmut is Russia’s main military objective in the eastern region of Donbass, as well as its main obstacle for the further occupation of Donetsk province.

HOW IRAN CRUSHES DISSENT — In the months since Jina “Mahsa” Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman died after being taken into custody by Iran’s morality police, the Iranian regime has cracked down on anti-government protests. Thousands have been arrested with some protestors claiming they were approached by police days after an incident, including women who were prosecuted for not wearing a hijab. As a result, some Iranian activists worry that facial recognition technology is being used by the regime to identify civilian protesters. While dissidents can be identified in multiple ways, Iranian lawmakers for years have said the country’s digital surveillance apparatus — which includes biometric data like face scans — would be used to crack down on illegal activity. Read how Iran’s government could be using AI as a weapon against dissent from WIRED’s Khari Johnson.

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) leaves a closed-door GOP caucus meeting. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

CURIOUS ABOUT GEORGE — House Republicans know George Santos is a problem. They’re just not sure what to do about him yet, write Olivia Beavers and Sarah Ferris.

The New York Republican landed on the Hill for his first term last week with a reputation marred by multiple public falsehoods about his past — behavior that conflicts with his party’s vocal campaign pledges to step up accountability and transparency, particularly among government officials.

The GOP conference is now deliberating over how to handle a member who’s been publicly ridiculed as a fraudster, including whether Santos should receive committee assignments. Some members are openly pushing to sideline him until internal investigations can dig through his campaign finances, and even basic biographical information.

“I don’t have any historical precedent about what’s appropriate here. And I do think that matters,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), chair of the Republican Main Street Caucus. “In my mind, I wouldn’t seat the guy until we have an investigation done. I think there are enough legitimate concerns out there about his behavior.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy has for weeks declined questions about how he plans to address Santos, whose support was crucial for the California Republican in the speakership election. Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) acknowledged there are some “concerns,” but disclosed only that GOP leaders would tackle them “internally.”

Most troubling for the GOP is that Santos has been accused of campaign finance misdeeds. A nonpartisan group, the Campaign Legal Center, recently filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Santos had run a “straw donor campaign” that helped him evade campaign finance limits.

And two New York Democrats — Reps. Ritchie Torres and freshman Dan Goldman — filed their own ethics complaint against their Empire State colleague. The duo called on the House Ethics Committee to launch an investigation into whether Santos filed “complete and accurate” financial reports.

“The House of Representatives has an obligation to police itself, and this is just the start of our mission to hold George Santos accountable to his constituents and the American people,” Goldman said in a statement.

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