“Ousted FBI Director James Comey has been invited to testify in a closed session next Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee,” Politico reports.
“The session would provide a first chance for Comey to weigh in on the circumstances of his firing and update senators behind closed doors on the status of the FBI’s investigation into allegations of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
Washington Post: “Capitol Hill was roiled Wednesday by the aftershocks of President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, as Senate Democrats began the process of slowing committee business and renewed calls for an independent investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.”
“Democrats invoked an obscure Senate rule that prevents committee hearings from lasting more than two hours after the Senate convenes. The move will cause Wednesday’s committee business — including nomination hearings for three deputies to Attorney General Jeff Sessions — to shut down around lunchtime.”
Gerald Seib: “Amid the controversy over the firing of the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the key players in Washington suddenly are a small group of moderate and independent-minded Republican senators whose support, or lack thereof, now becomes the crucial factor for President Donald Trump.”
“Those senators—perhaps fewer than 10 in all—will, more than anyone, determine whether the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election now moves toward an independent counsel or some other independent body. They also will determine whether or not a new FBI director can be confirmed without a deal being struck on a new path for that Russia inquiry.”
Washington Post: “All Democratic senators have been asked by Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) to be in the Senate chamber when the legislative day formally begins at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.”
“The rare early-morning appearance by the entire Democratic caucus is a symbolic attempt to sit, watch and listen as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) makes his traditional morning speech. The hope, Democratic aides said, is that McConnell will weigh in on Trump’s decision to fire Comey.”
“If McConnell says nothing new about Comey, Schumer is expected to use his morning floor speech to call out Republicans for supporting Trump’s controversial move. Schumer also plans to convene a caucus meeting Wednesday morning so that Democrats can discuss a more formal response.”
Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) “told a group of high school and middle school students last week that it’s fine to be a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer community ― but if you’re too open about it, don’t be surprised if you get picked on,” the HuffPost reports.
Said Enzi: “We always say in Wyoming you can be anything you want to be as long as you don’t push it in somebody’s face.”
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that Americans hold dim views of Congress and of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI).
“Nearly three-quarters of Americans disapprove of Congress’s job performance, up 12 percentage points since February… Just one-fifth said they approve of the job Congress is doing, a drop of 9 points.”
“Ryan is one focus of growing dissatisfaction, with 40% saying they view the House speaker negatively, compared with 22% who had a positive view—an 18-point gap. In February, unfavorable opinions outweighed positive ones by just 1 point.”
“I’ve spoken to him, but he has not spoken to me. I say hello to Mitch every chance I get, and he turns his head.”
— Sen. Elizabeth Waren (D-MA), quoted by the Boston Globe, noting how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has given her the cold shoulder.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) “endured a brutal face-to-face confrontation with angry constituents Thursday as liberal voters dominated a standing-room-only audience at a town-hall meeting in downtown Mesa,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“Even before he took the stage, the audience chanted ‘health care for all,’ showing their support for former President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the health-care-reform law that Flake has opposed. Flake was battered with questions about that issue as well as President Trump’s proposed border wall; his resolution to stop an Obama administration-era rule on internet privacy; his opposition to taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood; and his support for eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees to secure the confirmation of Trump’s pick, Neil Gorsuch.”
“But the conversation kept coming back to health care.”
Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) “insists that once his party regains the Senate majority — whenever that may be — Democrats will restore the 60-vote threshold needed to advance Supreme Court nominees, which was demolished by Republicans last week,” Politico reports.
Said Markey: “We will ensure that for the Supreme Court, there is that special margin that any candidate has to reach because that is essential to ensuring that our country has a confidence in those people who are nominated. Rather than just someone who passes a litmus test.”
A new series of Morning Consult polls finds that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is America’s most popular senator, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) held his spot as the least popular.
Among governors, New Jersey’s Chris Christie (R) is the least popular, while Republicans in traditionally blue states — Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Larry Hogan of Maryland — are the most popular.
“Democrats heard the argument throughout the Senate’s bitter debate over Neil Gorsuch: Don’t filibuster this Supreme Court nominee — save your leverage for President Trump’s next pick, the one who could change the court’s balance of power for a generation. But most Democrats decided that holding their fire this time would make no difference in the end,” Politico reports.
“Trump would choose the judges he wants, without regard to how Democrats might react, they concluded. And Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was intent on blowing up the filibuster for high court nominees, if not now, then next time in order to maintain the GOP’s grip on the court. His unprecedented blockade of Merrick Garland, Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, made that clear, they believed.”
“So if Democrats were going to lose the filibuster regardless, best to go down swinging now on a nominee many found far too conservative — a move that would also please a liberal base still spoiling for a fight against Trump.”
While discussing Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) calling the U.S. missile strikes in Syria unconstitutional, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told NBC News he does not “pay any attention” to what Paul says because, “He doesn’t have any real influence in the United States Senate.”
“A week before Republicans gutted the filibuster to put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, nine senators gathered in John McCain’s office to see whether they could save the Senate from spiraling further into disrepair,” Politico reports.
“But clinching an agreement on how Democrats would advance Gorsuch while preserving the option of blocking a nominee for the next vacancy proved impossible. The fact that the parties clashed so severely over whether Gorsuch was even a mainstream jurist undermined any confidence that senators could hold to a pact covering President Donald Trump’s next Supreme Court pick.”
Said Sen. Chris Coones (D-DE): “They had a hard time trusting that we wouldn’t just filibuster the next nominee. We had a hard time trusting that they wouldn’t just break the rules on the next nominee.”
“Sixty-one senators urged their party leaders to preserve the filibuster for legislation on Friday, backing the procedural tool after Republicans scrapped the minority’s power to block Supreme Court nominees,” Politico reports.
“But 37 senators declined to endorse the effort, including senior members of both parties as well as firebrands on the left and right.”
“Senate Republicans changed longstanding rules on Thursday to clear the way for the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to serve on the Supreme Court, bypassing a precedent-breaking Democratic filibuster by allowing the nomination to go forward on a simple majority vote,” the New York Times reports.
“In deploying the so-called nuclear option, lawmakers are fundamentally altering the way the Senate operates — a sign of the body’s creeping rancor in recent years after decades of at least relative bipartisanship on Supreme Court matters. Both parties have likewise warned of sweeping effects on the future of the court, predicting that the shift will lead to the elevation of more ideologically extreme judges if only a majority is required for confirmation.”
Rick Klein and Shushannah Walshe: “The Senate has been close to the brink before. But what makes this march toward the nuclear option different is that it’s eerily quiet in the provinces of bipartisanship. It’s not that efforts to save the Senate from itself are failing. It’s that they never even began. So it is that Senate rules and precedents take another step toward obliteration – not with excitement, on either side of the aisle, but with resignation.”
“The ‘nuclear’ metaphor may never have been apt. This was a slope more slippery than steep. And it’s hard to stop sliding when both sides are using both hands to point fingers.”
“I come from a state that no matter how I vote, 50 percent of the people are mad. So I’m kind of used to this.”
— Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), quoted by the AP, on her vote for Neil Gorsuch’s nomination.
I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning…
Playbook: “Republican leaders are sending their troops home after flailing for weeks while trying to pass a health-care plan. In fact, they’ve passed almost nothing. We expect sparks at town-hall meetings and mounting frustration at the inaction in D.C. “
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.
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