Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked FBI Director Christopher Wray whether there was any evidence of antifa involvement in the Capitol insurrection, NBC News reports.
Responded Wray: “We have not to date seen any evidence of anarchist violent extremists or people subscribing to antifa in connection with the 6th.”
Wray later said that white supremacists make up “the biggest chunk of our domestic terrorism portfolio overall.”
CNBC: “In the latest stimulus package making its way through Congress, there’s no extension of the national ban on evictions that is set to expire this month, meaning millions of Americans could be at risk of losing their homes as the Covid-19 pandemic still rages.”
“President Joe Biden had called on Congress to keep the eviction moratorium in effect through September. However, because Democrats have decided to pass the legislation through a process called budget reconciliation, they can’t include the eviction ban in the relief bill.”
“House Democrats are pursuing an ambitious agenda to approve several progressive bills supported by President Biden in the coming weeks, but these measures face an uncertain future in the evenly divided Senate, where most legislation will require support from Republicans to advance,” CBS News reports.
“Several of these measures have previously passed in the House but stalled in the Senate, as then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to bring them to the floor for consideration. Speaker Nancy Pelosi had referred to McConnell as the ‘grim reaper,’ overseeing the ‘legislative graveyard’ of the Senate. However, even with Democrats now nominally in control of the Senate, many of these bills still face an uncertain future.”
“More than 20,000 North Carolina voters have left the Republican Party to become unaffiliated since Election Day, and nearly 60% of them are from suburban areas,” Axios Charlotte reports.
Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) “has lost her chief of staff, communications director and legislative director already. And she’s only been in Congress for 57 days,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Van Duyne fired chief of staff Brendan Belair and legislative director Erica Barker. Van Duyne’s spokeswoman Amanda Gonzalez Thompson also quit last week.”
“Turnover isn’t uncommon on Capitol Hill, especially for a new lawmaker, but this level of churn this early in a congressional career is quite notable, and it’s very strange.”
But this is even stranger: “On Feb. 10, Christian Dillard, the former spokesperson for Van Dyune’s campaign and a longtime acquaintance of the congresswoman, shot and killed himself outside Van Duyne’s home. Van Duyne was home at the time of the incident.”
First Read: “For one thing, there hasn’t been a cascade of calls for Cuomo to resign; so far, just one New York congresswoman, Kathleen Rice, has called for Cuomo’s resignation. (Notably, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand wants the matter investigated first.)”
“In addition, unlike with Franken in 2017, Democrats are under less pressure to claim the political high ground and make an obvious contrast against a current congressional candidate (Roy Moore in Alabama) or a current president (Donald Trump).”
“And Cuomo has never been someone willing to walk away, even when facing a crisis that’s become impossible to control.”
“But Democrats need to be asked this question after the latest allegation against Cuomo: How could you call for — or accept — Al Franken’s resignation, but not do the same for Cuomo?”
Former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro penned a 15-page dossier falsely accusing his colleague Victoria Coates of being Anonymous, Politico reports.
“The December 2019 memo goes into great detail to make the case that Coates — who was then a deputy national security adviser — was the author of both the New York Times op-ed and a tell-all book that described a resistance force within the administration aiming to undermine President Donald Trump.”
“Coates, who is not named in the memo but is clearly identified through specific information, was transferred out of the White House to the Department of Energy in February, just weeks after Navarro wrote and circulated the document.”
Jonathan Bernstein: “I’ve seen a number of perfectly fine articles about why and how former President Donald Trump still wields influence over the Republican Party, but c’mon! The main reason that Republican politicians feel stuck with Trump is that they know that he’s capable of turning against their party at the drop of a hat.”
“Yes, Trump is good at tapping into resentment, but plenty of Republican politicians are good at that. Yes, he’s popular among Republican voters, but most politicians are popular among their own party’s voters. Yes, he’s willing to take sides in primaries, but he doesn’t actually have a particularly impressive record of swaying primary voters.”
“No, what’s different about Trump is that unlike any other former president — really, any former nominee — in living memory, it’s that easy to picture him telling his voters to stay home and handing elections to the other party. And that’s why he’s been an impossible dilemma for Republican politicians ever since he emerged as a major candidate in 2015.”
New York Times: “Unless the parties can agree on how to fund an infrastructure plan, Mr. Biden might have to try to push through another sprawling spending package with only Democratic votes. The task could prove exceptionally difficult given the competing pressures the president will face from centrists and progressives in his party — and the absence of a pandemic emergency to help fuse those factions in support of the bill.”
“Biden administration officials have not decided whether to push infrastructure as a stand-alone bill or as part of a broader package. But any hopes of bringing Democrats and Republicans together on a program are almost sure to be undermined by the same disagreements that have felled previous attempts.”
“New satellite imagery obtained by CNN reveals North Korea has recently taken steps to conceal a facility US intelligence agencies believe is being used to store nuclear weapons, a move that could add to the growing sense of urgency from critics who argue the Biden administration needs to articulate a clear strategy on how it will deal with Kim Jong Un going forward.”
Washington Post: “Only a few months ago, Fox cracked down on appearances by its hosts and journalists at partisan events, deeming them a breach of the line distinguishing a news organization from a political-advocacy outfit.”
“But Fox not only permitted Bongino and Hegseth to address CPAC this week — the network was directly involved in financing the conference.
New York Times: “As it turns out, new data shows that a year after the pandemic wrought economic devastation around the country, forcing states to revise their revenue forecasts and prepare for the worst, for many the worst didn’t come. One big reason: $600-a-week federal supplements that allowed people to keep spending — and states to keep collecting sales tax revenue — even when they were jobless, along with the usual state unemployment benefits.”
“By some measures, the states ended up collecting nearly as much revenue in 2020 as they did in 2019.”
New York Times: “Just as striking was what wasn’t said at the event. There was vanishingly little discussion of why Republicans lost the presidency, the House and the Senate over the last four years, nor much debate about what agenda they should pursue to rebuild the party.”
“The absence of soul-searching owes in part to the Republicans’ surprise gains in the House and the denialism of many activists that they lost the White House at all, a false claim perpetuated with trollish gusto by former President Donald Trump himself on Sunday, to the delight of the crowd.”
“House Republicans will reclaim their majority in 2022 by offering candidates who are women, minorities or veterans,” a memo obtained by Axios says.
From the document: “In 2020, all 15 of the seats Republicans flipped were won by a woman, a minority or a veteran. Continuing to recruit similar candidates is a foundational building block to the majority in 2022.”
However, the memo sounds the alarm about insufficient Republican candidate fundraising, calling it the “single biggest threat to Republicans taking back the majority.”
“The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will release 10 new digital ads targeting vulnerable Republicans who voted against President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief package,” Axios reports.
“Donald Trump had to be talked out of making an early endorsement in Ohio’s 2022 U.S. Senate race, a sign of his eagerness to reengage politically,” Axios reports.
“The former president discussed endorsing former state GOP chair Jane Timken last week during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago with RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, but top advisers — including Donald Trump Jr. — urged him to wait.”
The Office of Congressional Ethics concluded in a report that there is “substantial” evidence that Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS) misused campaign as well as official funds and used his office to help his brother in violation of House rules, The Hill reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.