Tuesday will bring the return of divided government to Washington — with intense investigations into President Biden’s family and administration at the forefront as his legislative agenda meets Republican opposition.
Republicans are preparing to use new investigative tools to smack the Biden administration out of the House while continuing to seek to stall his remaining Senate agenda.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is preparing to hand her gavel to Republicans in the House of Representatives, prompting a return to a split in party control in the White House and at least one chamber that has occurred eight times this century is.
If recent examples are any guide, this split will lead to angry clashes between the White House and Congress, with unknown consequences.
When House Republicans took over the House on a tea-party wave in 2010, it set the table for furious tax battles with the Obama administration that soon left the nation facing a “fiscal cliff.”
President Joe Biden is back in Washington, but his days of great legislative gains during his tenure may be over if Republicans take control of the House of Representatives
House Republicans have vowed to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings, armed with subpoena power information from his infamous laptop
When House Republicans seized control after New Gingrich’s attacks on a “corrupt” Democratic establishment in 1994, it helped launch a presidential impeachment trial that imploded an implosion in the GOP leadership ranks.
House Republicans have already made it clear that they intend to probe President Biden and his family – starting with first son Hunter Biden and his business dealings, armed with revelations from his infamous laptop.
But before they can do that, they have to go through a chaotic potential voting line to try and choose a speaker – with minority leader Kevin McCarthy facing opposition from conservative holdouts. If he doesn’t win the first ballot, it would be the first time in 100 years that that hasn’t happened.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the new chair of the House Oversight Committee, said he wants to identify “waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement and corruption within the federal government.”
“The only thing we can do in a divided Congress is to curb runaway spending,” he told Fox and Friends on Monday. “Our investigation begins tomorrow,” he said.
“We’ve been working on it for over a year. We’ll hopefully start inviting people for interviews tomorrow,” he said — when asked specifically about previous claims of investigating Hunter Biden and Big Tech.
“If Mr. Biden’s family members have dealings with foreign adversaries, it could affect his decision-making as president in a way that threatens national security,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed — although freewheeling hearings could allow members of the judiciary to investigate a slew of characters who appeared in communications found on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Comer also dismissed the Biden administration’s move that it would not respond to previous requests for information from Comer and incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) because they were made in the minority. That was taken as an early sign that the White House was ready to play hard.
“Tomorrow we will be in the majority and we will simply rebroadcast each of these requests. We expect the White House to work with us to get our job done,” Comer said.
Republicans have said they will probe the administration’s border policy, with thousands pouring across the southern border each day, as well as the origins of COVID-19 — after telegraphing plans to bring coronavirus chief Anthony Fauci back from retirement for questioning.
But before they can fire subpoenas, Republicans must elect a new speaker.
Gingrich, who came to power by scathing attacks on former GOP minority leader Bob Michel, on Monday chastised ordinary Republicans for not supporting minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who was out to cobble together 218 votes to get Speaker become a slender 222-vote majority of the GOP.
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., must convince a handful of conservatives to endorse him as a speaker
Republicans have vowed to examine US aid to Ukraine
Rep. James Comer, R-KY., has vowed to investigate wasteful spending — and Hunter Biden. Rep. James Jordon, R-OH, takes over the Judiciary Committee
Biden signed a stack of legislation before leaving town after Christmas. Now he has to deal with a divided Congress
“The choice is Kevin McCarthy or Chaos. And there’s no one who’s going to replace Kevin because he has a lot more people totally devoted to him than this handful of infinites,” Gingrich told Fox News.
On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Democrats plan to use their own expanded majority of 51 seats.
Though Republicans end the House committee on Jan. 6 — McCarthy vowed to investigate failures in securing the Capitol instead — the Senate plans to fill some of the gap.
“I think we’re going to have strong oversight in the Judiciary Committee with possible hearings,” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a senior member of the panel, told .
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) signaled that the Senate Finance Committee, which he chairs, will continue the efforts of the House Ways and Means Committee, which finally released information on Donald Trump’s tax return on Friday after a four-year struggle.
President Biden has sent a signal on where he wants to focus with a planned trip to Kentucky on Wednesday to again campaign for the bipartisan infrastructure bill — this time with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to secure the $1.64 billion in funding see awards awarded to Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project.
“That’s a big bridge, man. It is a lot of money. It’s important,” he said, asking when he returned to the White House Monday why it was important to go with McConnell, who he calls a longtime friend.
Although it’s an area for fierce partisan debate, Big Tech could be a potential area for compromise, USA Today predicted. That’s because members of both parties are warning of the potential risks and vowing to hold them accountable.
Republicans claim it was biased in favor of Democrats and want to investigate new revelations from Elon Musk’s Twitter files about suppressing news about Hunter’s laptop, while Democrats warn about monopoly and consolidation and how platforms can get used to white nationalism to spread.
Biden’s ability to run a successful re-election campaign will depend in part on his ability to navigate a divided government. Former Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have benefited politically from GOP brinksmanship.
His White House has increased staffing for potential conflicts in recent months, although Hunter Biden has enlisted the legal services of prominent attorney Abbe Lowell.
Biden said he will spend part of the vacation discussing his political future with family but has not revealed if he has made any progress.
There is more at stake than politics. After Democrats attempted to prevent an increase in the statutory debt limit in a $1.7 trillion mass appropriation law, the next standoff will once again jeopardize international confidence in US credit.
The omnibus provided Ukraine with billions to fight the Russian invasion, but McCarthy has vowed not to write a “blank check” and Republicans are calling for tighter scrutiny of the funds provided.