Former President Trump’s conviction in his New York hush money trial is poised to dominate the conversation on Capitol Hill this week, as lawmakers return to Washington and face questions about the guilty verdict and how they think it will impact the presidential election and the downturn will affect voting races. as the calendar gets closer to November.
A handful of vulnerable Republicans in the House of Representatives have remained silent on the former president’s conviction, while other Republican lawmakers are promising action in response to the conviction — two dynamics that will take center stage when lawmakers in both chambers head to the Capitol on Monday .
Also this week, Anthony Fauci will testify before a House of Representatives panel, marking the first time he will appear publicly before lawmakers in nearly two years. The hearing — focused on the U.S. response to COVID-19 — could turn fiery as Republicans vow to grill the public health expert who has become a bogeyman on the right.
In the House of Representatives, lawmakers will consider legislation to sanction International Criminal Court officials after the ICC sought arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli and Hamas leaders. The House of Representatives will also vote on the first of twelve appropriations bills for the 2025 budget year.
On the other side of the Capitol, senators will vote on a bill to protect access to contraceptives as Democrats look to emphasize reproductive rights ahead of the November elections.
Trump’s conviction to dominate the conversation
Lawmakers are sure to face questions about Trump’s 34 guilty verdicts when they arrive at the Capitol on Monday, marking the first day many will face reporters since a 12-person jury voted to indict the former president to be convicted of falsification. files in the case, which revolved around a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The most wanted members will likely be a group of vulnerable Republicans in the House of Representatives who have not yet commented on Trump’s conviction. Republican lawmakers hail from districts President Biden won in 2020, a dynamic that complicates their response to the guilty verdict as they vie for reelection in November.
That GOP list includes California Reps. Mike Garcia, Michelle Steel, David Valadao, John Duarte and Young Kim, along with Reps. Tom Kean Jr. (NJ), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and David Schweikert (Ariz.). They did not respond to The Hill’s requests for comment last week.
As the Republican group’s silence continues, House Democrats’ campaign arm is starting to go after Republicans on the front lines, mounting pressure as people wonder when — and how — they will respond to the historic conviction.
“If these shameless, self-serving Republican representatives cared even a little about ‘law and order’ in California, they would convict this 34-time convicted felon instead of supporting him for President of the United States,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign. Commission spokesman Dan Gottlieb said in a statement, name-checking many of the California lawmakers who remained silent.
The vast majority of the Republican Party, meanwhile, has continued to attack the guilty charges, labeling the process that led to the conviction as politically motivated and criticizing the prosecution’s key witness, Michael Cohen, as unreliable.
Top Republicans have indicated that their outrage will translate into action on Capitol Hill in the near future. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) announced last week that he will “require” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and another top prosecutor who worked on the hush money case to appear for a hearing on June 13.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday that the purpose of that event is to “examine what these prosecutors are doing at the state and federal level to use political, you know, political retaliation in the justice system to go after political opponents to go. , federal officials like Donald Trump.”
“We have to fight back, and we will, with everything we have in our arsenal,” he added during an interview with Fox News Sunday. “But we do this within the boundaries of the rule of law. We believe in our institutions.”
House GOP to grill Fauci
Republicans in the House of Representatives will question Anthony Fauci this week during a high-profile hearing on the COVID-19 pandemic, which will mark the first time the public health expert has testified publicly since September 2022.
The hearing, before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, is scheduled for Monday at 10 a.m.
The event comes after Fauci — who stepped down as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the end of 2022 after nearly 40 years in the role — conducted two closed-door interviews with the panel in January. in which Republicans pressed him on issues including the “lab leak” theory of COVID-19’s origins and the six-foot social distancing guidelines.
The panel released these transcripts on Friday, ahead of Monday’s hearing.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the panel’s chairman, said he is interested in asking Fauci about his role in the response to the pandemic and the origins of COVID-19. Republicans are also expected to question Fauci about allegations that an NIAID official circumvented public records laws to hide data related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Public Service Retirement Fires Dr. Fauci is not shirking his responsibility to the American people,” Wenstrup said in a statement last week.
House to vote on ICC sanctions legislation and appropriations bill
The House of Representatives will vote this week on a bill to sanction the ICC after the chief prosecutor filed arrest warrants against Netanyahu and other Israeli and Hamas leaders last month, a move that sparked widespread outrage in Washington.
The measure – led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) – Calls for sanctions against ICC officials who “made any attempt to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies.”
The sanctions include blocking US property transactions for individuals, declaring them inadmissible to the US and revoking any visas they may have.
“If the ICC insists on targeting Israel, a democracy that defends itself against evil, the US must stand up to them and ensure there are consequences for these international bureaucrats,” wrote Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La. ) on Sunday in a lookout post. night.
The vote will certainly fracture the Democratic Caucus, which has been divided on the initiative of the ICC. Pro-Israeli democrats have rejected it, accusing officials of creating a false equivalency between Israel and Hamas, while pro-Palestinian liberals – who are rising up against rising humanitarian deaths in the Gaza Strip – have called for guaranteeing the independence of the Council. respected.
Adding to the internal politics, the White House said last week it opposed ICC sanctions, complicating bipartisan negotiations that had been underway for days.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan last month filed the arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders, arguing that they “bear criminal responsibility” for a handful of war crimes, such as starving civilians as a method of war and starving civilians. extermination as a crime against humanity.
The ICC judges will not determine whether or not the warrants will be granted.
The House of Representatives will also vote this week on the first appropriations bill for fiscal year 2025, launching initial consideration of the government’s funding measures ahead of the September 30 cutoff deadline.
The legislation — one of 12 appropriations bills — funds military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The House Appropriations Committee advanced the measure last month on a 34-25 vote.
Senate votes on bill to protect the right to contraception
The Senate will vote this week on a bill to protect access to contraception, as Democrats look to focus on the issue of reproductive rights ahead of the November elections.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced in a “Dear Colleague” letter on Sunday that the Senate would vote on the legislation – titled the Right to Contraception Act – on Wednesday.
The vote comes ahead of the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade — the case that established a constitutional right to abortion — sending the issue of abortion rights to the states.
The birth control legislation is unlikely to clear the Senate, where the 60-vote filibuster exists. But the vote will give Democrats a chance to press Republicans on reproductive rights and help fuel pro-choice messaging on the campaign trail before November.
“Democrats have made it clear that we will not support these attacks and that we will fight to preserve reproductive freedoms,” Schumer said in his Sunday letter.
“The far-right MAGA Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade opened the floodgates for Republicans to force their anti-reproductive freedom and anti-women agenda down the throats of all Americans,” he added.
The consideration of the contraception bill comes after Schumer held a message vote last month on the bipartisan border deal, which a group of senators unveiled earlier this year. Republicans ultimately blocked the measure, which was intended to give vulnerable Senate Democrats a chance to officially vote in favor of a crackdown on the situation at the southern border, an issue that emerged as a major campaign theme this cycle.
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