Magnificent News: Power Up: Senate GOP poised to block Jan. 6 commission

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Washington, Fast.

By Jacqueline Alemany
with Tobi Raji

It's Friday. Have a wonderful long weekend. This is the Power Up newsletter – we'll see you on Tuesday.

On the Hill

THE GOP'S CHOICE: Senate Republicans are poised to mount their first legislative filibuster today against the bill establishing a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

Not even a last minute lobbying effort by the mother and girlfriend of the late Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died responding to the insurrection, changed the relentless effort by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to block the legislation.

"The face-to-face meetings involving Brian D. Sicknick's family, the officers and Republican senators highlighted a stark choice for GOP lawmakers: either stand with Trump, who opposes the commission, or support members of law enforcement," our colleagues Felicia Sonmez, Karoun Demirjian and Peter Hermann write.

"I mean, why would they not want to get to the bottom of such horrific violence?" Sandra Garza, the late officer's companion of 11 years, told reporters, calling it "very disturbing" that GOP lawmakers seemed uninterested in resolving lingering questions about the attack. "They are here today — and with their families and comfortable — because of the actions of law enforcement that day … It just boggles my mind."
Reminder: "Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes a day after he confronted rioters at the insurrection, the District's chief medical examiner ruled last month … Nearly 140 officers were assaulted during the attack, as they faced rioters armed with ax handles, bats, metal batons, wooden poles, hockey sticks and other weapons, authorities said."

Gladys Sicknick, the mother of late Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, Sandra Garza, of the late Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) arrive for a meeting with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) to urge for a January 6 commission. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

McConnell's own members criticized him for the political play: "In an extraordinary meeting with reporters on Capitol Hill before an expected vote on the Jan. 6 commission, [Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)] took direct aim at the Kentucky Republican over his stated rationale for opposing the investigatory panel: that he would rather focus his party's energy on President Joe Biden's misdeeds to gain fodder for the 2022 midterm elections rather than risk alienating former President Trump and his supporters," HuffPosts's Igor Bobic reports.

"To be making a decision for the short-term political gain at the expense of understanding and acknowledging what was in front of us on Jan. 6, I think we need to look at that critically. Is that really what this is about, one election cycle after another?" Murkowski said. "Or are we going to acknowledge that as a country that is based on these principles of democracy that we hold so dear. And one of those is that we have free and fair elections … I kind of want that to endure beyond just one election cycle."

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) made a plea to her colleagues during Thursday's Senate Republican lunch to advance the commission, Politico's Burgess Everett reports.

"Collins kept trying to whip up 10 votes to break a filibuster on Thursday and said in an interview that she wouldn't 'give up.' But McConnell didn't let her go un-rebutted at the conference's closed-door meeting, and Collins was resigned to the short-term failure of her efforts at compromise."

Even Democrats who have been holding out on working with Republicans on a bipartisan basis lashed out at McConnell:

"There is no excuse for any Republican to vote against this commission since Democrats have agreed to everything they asked for," Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) said in a statement on Thursday. "Mitch McConnell has made this his political position, thinking it will help his 2022 election … They do not believe the truth will set you free, so they continue to live in fear."
"We've got to get to the bottom of this s***," Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told reporters. "Jesus. It's a nonpartisan investigation of what happened. And if it's because they're afraid of Trump then they need to get out of office. It's bull****. You make tough decisions in this office or you shouldn't be here."

Some Democratic lawmakers believe that today's vote might be a turning point for some of their peers who have been holding out on working with Republicans on major agenda items.

"This is an important moment — it's not the end all be all but the fact that McConnell is filibustering the motion to proceed is Exhibit A that he's pursuing his statement of fronting a 100% blockade of the Biden agenda," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told Power Up.
Earlier this month: Asked about whether he was concerned about the direction of the party, McConnell responded that "one-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration … We're confronted with severe challenges from a new administration, and a narrow majority of Democrats in the House and a 50-50 Senate to turn America into a socialist country, and that's 100 percent of my focus," per NBC News's Allan Smith.

About last night: "Republican senators have delayed passage of a massive bill designed to increase American competitiveness with China, and that means a key procedural vote on a bill to create an independent panel to investigate the January 6 riot on the US Capitol has been delayed until later Friday," CNN's Ryan Nobles, Ted Barrett, and Manu Raju report.

"Senators slogged through days of debates and amendments, but proceedings came to a standstill late Thursday. One Republican, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, protested the rush to finish and insisted on more changes to the sprawling package. A few other Republicans joined him," the Associated Press's Lisa Mascaro reports.
"Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the Commerce Committee chairwoman managing the action for Democrats, reminded colleagues that the bill has been through lengthy committee hearings with input and changes from all sides."

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Global power

🚨: "Hackers linked to Russia's main intelligence agency surreptitiously seized an email system used by the State Department's international aid agency to burrow into the computer networks of human rights groups and other organizations of the sort that have been critical of President Vladimir V. Putin," the New York Times's David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth report.

"Discovery of the breach comes three weeks before President Biden is scheduled to meet Putin in Geneva, and at a moment of increased tension between the two nations — in part because of a series of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks emanating from Russia."
"The newly disclosed attack was bold: By breaching the systems of a supplier used by the federal government, the hackers sent out emails from more than 3,000 genuine-looking accounts, addressed to more than 150 organizations that regularly receive communications from the United States Agency for International Development."

At the White House

HAPPENING TODAY: "The White House is set to propose a $6 trillion budget plan for 2022, as Biden seeks major changes to the U.S. economy and welfare system," our colleague Jeff Stein reports.

"The budget stacks together the numerous policy initiatives that Biden has already offered in his first four months in office. He has called for a $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal, a $1.8 trillion education and families plan, and $1.5 trillion in proposed discretionary spending, though some of this money would be spread out over several years."
"Biden has made clear, however, that he wants to negotiate many of these proposals with Republicans, and the figures are likely to fluctuate if talks pick up momentum."
Biden's "first budget proposal locks in his vision of an expanded government, offering more services to a broad segment of Americans, particularly the low-income."

FYI: "Under the plan, debt would exceed the record level seen at the end of World War II and reach 117% of economic output by the end of 2031, up from about 100% this year," the Wall Street Journal's Kate Davidson and Kristina Peterson report.

The campaign

PAUL RYAN CRITICIZES TRUMP'S HOLD ON THE GOP: "Former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) offered a veiled criticism of Trump in a speech Thursday night in which he urged the Republican Party not to rely on the 'appeal of one personality,'" our colleague Colby Itkowitz reports.

"Once again, we conservatives find ourselves at a crossroads. And here's one reality we have to face: If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we're not going anywhere," Ryan said Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

"But Ryan came short of denouncing Trump. Instead, he credited 'the populism of President Trump in action, tethered to conservative principles' for a robust economy in early 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic."
"He also seemed to swipe at his successor, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), when he said voters won't be 'impressed by the sight of yes-men and flatterers flocking to Mar-a-Lago.'"

Tough crowd:

From the courts

MANHATTAN DA COULD PURSUE RACKETEERING CHARGE IN TRUMP ORG PROBE: "Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance could be considering a criminal charge that former Trump's business empire was a corrupt enterprise under a New York law resembling the federal racketeering statute known as RICO, former prosecutors and defense attorneys" told Politico's Josh Gerstein and Betsy Woodruff Swan.

"The state law — sometimes called 'little RICO' — can be invoked with proof of as few as three crimes involving a business or other enterprise and can carry a prison term of up to 25 years, along with a mandatory minimum of one to three years."
"One challenge for prosecutors could be the time limits in the New York state racketeering law. The government would have to prove two of any crimes charged occurred in the previous five years. That means any alleged crimes that took place during the height of the Trump campaign in 2016 could lose their ability to trigger the 'little RICO' law in the coming months."

PROSECUTORS ARE INVESTIGATING WHETHER UKRAINIANS MEDDLED IN THE 2020 ELECTION: "Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have been investigating whether several Ukrainian officials helped orchestrate a wide-ranging plan to meddle in the 2020 presidential campaign, including using Rudolph W. Giuliani to spread their misleading claims about Biden and tilt the election in [former president] Donald Trump's favor," the New York Times's William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess, Kenneth P. Vogel and Nicole Hong report.

"The criminal investigation underscores the federal government's increasingly aggressive approach toward rooting out foreign interference in American electoral politics."

The investigations

THE SCRAMBLED POLITICS OF THE PANDEMIC: "Senate Democrats lined up alongside Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), one of their least-favorite Republicans, to support a measure urging the Biden administration to declassify intelligence on whether the novel coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab," our colleagues Annie Linskey, Shane Harris and David Willman report. "A Democratic-led House subcommittee is pledging an investigation into the virus's origins, including the lab's safety record."

"And Biden directed U.S. intelligence agencies to 'redouble their efforts' to determine the cause of the pandemic, suggesting that while the virus could have jumped from animals to humans, it also could have escaped from the lab."
"The rapid developments mark a new effort by Democrats to show they are pushing to figure out how the pandemic started and, in the process, considering a theory that some initially attributed to conspiracy theorists: that the pandemic that has cost about 3.5 million lives worldwide stemmed from human error at the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

In the agencies

LAWMAKER WANTS TO REFORM CDC: Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) "issued a critical review of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's handling of the coronavirus, faulting 'mistakes' at the agency for setting back the nation's response to the pandemic," our colleague Dan Diamond reports.

"Structural and cultural reforms at CDC are needed to ensure the organization is modern, nimble, mission-focused, and able to leverage cutting-edge science so that the United States is better prepared for the next threat that will come our way," Burr, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote in a five-page brief shared with The Washington Post.
"Burr's review is one of multiple inquiries underway by lawmakers of both parties, saying they want to ensure the CDC is better prepared to respond to the next pandemic."