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House Republicans were largely dismissive of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greenes (R-Ga.) announcement Wednesday that she would force them to vote on ousting Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) next week, with many predicting her move would fail.

Greenes escalation has further divided the deeply fractured Republican conference, with lawmakers eager to move past their internal rancor and focus on retaining their slender House majority in November.

Greenes move has also frustrated top advisers to former president Donald Trump, and one person said Trump has repeatedly described the Republican infighting as embarrassing.

He wishes it would just go away, this person said.

His advisers believe the situation puts Trump in the difficult bind of choosing between allies he likes and is furthermore unnecessary in the middle of an election year where they want to be talking about immigration, inflation, campus protests and other issues they view as more favorable.

We are trying to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory by making the story Republican infighting, said the person who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Trumps thinking.

Trump has endorsed Johnsons handling of the speakership, but its unclear if the presumptive GOP presidential nominee will proactively intervene to halt Greene from introducing her motion to vacate because she has been a consistently loyal ally. A fired-up Greene claimed Wednesday morning she was bringing her motion to help Trump, arguing that Johnson has fully funded the Justice Department that she charges wants to put Trump in jail for life.

I fight for [Trumps agenda] every day, and thats why Im fighting my colleagues now, Greene said. We have to do this. We have to win in November. We have to keep the majority.

Trump spent multiple hours with Johnson last month at Mar-a-Lago, where they discussed candidate endorsements and party politics. Trumps new head of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, told Republicans on Tuesday that Trump wants to see the GOP conference remain united.

Trumps involvement may not be necessary as a majority of Republicans plan to vote with a sizable amount of Democrats to prevent Johnsons ouster and avoid plunging the House into uncertainty.

Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), who chairs the largest factions of conservatives in the Republican Study Committee, said Trump wants Republicans to focus on bigger issues and not get sidetracked with feuding. Lets get focused on winning in November, keeping the House, taking the Senate and having the White House in January and really run hard to get a lot of great things done for Americans, he said.

Greene intends to act sometime next week and as of Wednesday afternoon, there were only two other Republicans Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.) who publicly backed her motion. The House would have two legislative days to consider the motion, but would first consider a move to reject it that Democrats are expected to support.

Forcing the House to consider ousting Johnson marks the second time Republicans have acted to remove their speaker over the past six months. Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) led the charge to get rid of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who became the first speaker in history to be removed from the post after seven other Republicans and all Democrats supported his ouster. As a result, the House stopped functioning for almost a month as the Republican majority devolved into chaos, repeatedly failing to elect a speaker until GOP members unanimously elected the ultraconservative, and little-known, Johnson.

Mike Johnson is not capable of that job. He has proven it over and over again, Greene said Wednesday morning, adding that she wants to see lawmakers vote on the record.

Greenes chances of success, however, are in doubt because House Democratic leadership has pledged to rescue Johnson by attempting to kill the measure before it can gain any traction. Nonetheless, Republicans will hold a one-vote House majority by next week, and anything could happen in the volatile chamber where support from GOP hard-liners is always in question.

Several people familiar with House GOP leaderships thinking say its possible that Johnson would call up the vote for immediate consideration after Greene formally triggers it. A vote to table or effectively kill the measure would come first, which is the motion Democrats have pledged to support. If that isnt successful, only then would a final vote occur to oust Johnson and Democrats have said they wont intervene to save the speaker in that case.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is the star of the show. The show is called Republicans Gone Wild, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said. House Republicans are either unwilling or unable to get [Greene] and the extreme MAGA Republicans under control, and so, its going to take a bipartisan coalition and partnership to accomplish that objective.

Several Republicans said some hard-liners might oppose the move to table Greenes motion because they know Johnson wont ultimately be ousted.

I think thats a possibility, Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) said.

Its unclear, however, how Republicans would actually vote if the vacate motion came to the floor. If all lawmakers are present and participating in a final vote to oust Johnson, Greene, Massie and Gosars support would be enough to remove the speaker from the office because House Republicans razor-thin voting margin will temporarily go down to one once Democrat Tim Kennedy is sworn in to fill an open seat in New York.

After months of threats, Greene and Massie held an early-morning news conference in which they finally tipped their hands. Greene indicated that she wanted to give Republicans the weekend to reflect on how they will vote, and she suggested Johnson should pray on it and resign rather than embrace the endorsement of Jeffries and House Democrats.

Everybody needs a weekend to prepare. Im not irresponsible. I care about my conference. I have been measured. I have given this time. I have been giving warning after warning, Greene said. It was a warning to stop serving the Democrats and support our Republican conference and support our agenda. And [Johnson] didnt do it.

Johnson responded quickly: This motion is wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution and wrong for the country.

The steps to oust Johnson from the speakership

Greene has said she will formally introduce a motion to vacate next week.

This kicks off a 48-hour process in which the House can remove the speaker.

Motion to table

introduced

No motion

to table is

introduced

Democratic leadership has pledged to support a motion to table, effectively killing the measure.

The steps to oust Johnson from the speakership

Greene has said she will formally introduce a motion to vacate next week.

This kicks off a 48-hour process in which the House can remove the speaker.

Motion to table introduced

No motion to table is

introduced

Democratic leadership has pledged to support a motion to table, effectively killing the measure.

Greene devoted a majority of her 30-minute news conference to discussing Johnsons reliance on House Democrats to pass votes the far-right vehemently disagreed with, even though their quest for ideological purity on must-pass legislation helped drive Johnson into Democratic arms.

Now we have Hakeem Jeffries coming out over and over again, embracing Mike Johnson with a warm hug and a big wet sloppy kiss. They want to keep the band together, she said. Theyre sharing the gavel. Theyre holding it together.

Before Greenes announcement, Johnson had some choice words for her. Often referencing her as a friend, Johnson said in an interview on NewsNations The Hill program that he no longer considers her a serious lawmaker.

Bless her heart, Johnson said, deploying a subtle insult often used in the South. I dont spend a lot of time thinking about her. Ive got to do my job, and we do the right thing and we let the chips fall where they may.

In response, Massie said that Greene is the most serious representative up here.

If you listen to the speech that she just gave, she captured exactly what Republicans back home are thinking. They are tired of this swamp, he said.

Greene and Massie charge Johnson with committing three sins during his six months helming the House: relying on Democrats to fund the government in late March, pushing past far-right concerns over a government surveillance reauthorization bill, and sending $61 billion to aid Ukraine as part of a $95 billion foreign aid package.

Greene did not name anyone she thought could cobble enough votes together to win the speakership if her effort is successful. That has been a major concern among Republicans who recognize that their inability to agree on much of anything could jeopardize their ability to elect a conservative as speaker again.

Im not naming names, but I think we have people that are capable. Anybody thats willing to fight for our agenda anyone that refuses to share the power with Hakeem Jeffries, she said.

Massie addressed the alleged futility of trying to oust Johnson when the large majority of the House appears ready to save the speaker, urging Republicans to ask Johnson to resign in discussions with him before the vote occurs.

What weve seen here is the coming out of the uniparty and it will be apparent next week, Massie said, referring to Johnson and Democrats working together to save the speaker. We cannot coast this one out.

One Republican said, despite Greenes charge that voters are outraged by the way the House does business, that no one outside of Washington cares about the intraparty infighting.

Weve got an election coming up. You go anywhere in America and you talk to a person on the street, theyre not going to say who the next speaker is is the most pressing issue that they have, said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the Freedom Caucus who will not vote in support of ousting Johnson.

Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.

Link:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene launches her plan to oust Speaker Johnson - The Washington Post - The Washington Post

Rep. Chip Roy laid out a game plan Tuesday for conservatives to go to war against the radical left if the GOP gains control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in the November elections.

The Texas Republican and House Freedom Caucus policy director said hard-liners will have to roll over fellow Republicans who want to scale back their agenda because of the 60-vote requirement for most legislation in the Senate.

Youre going to have to get over the excuse that will be dropped on day 1, which is, Chip, we dont have 60 in the Senate, Roysaid at a Heritage Foundation event Tuesday.We got to plan now driving a steamroller over the weak-kneed individuals in the Congress that will use 60 as the excuse not to fight for you.

Heritage billed the event Roy spoke at as Defunding the Left: The Strategy to Save America.

Roy said his priorities in the next Congress are to cut spending to stop funding left-wing policies such as tighter emissions requirements for cars, securing the border and restoring a peace through strength model for the military. He said he wants a strong, focused military, sparingly used.

Calling it a third way, Roysaid: Its not isolationist and its not endless wars.

Roy said funding national defense has wrongly been used as an excuse to go along with Democratic spending priorities that conservatives oppose.

We just default to fear and we use the national security and defense complex to run over everything else, he said. We just did it last week with the foreign aid bill, the $95.3 billion emergency supplemental providing aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and requiring TikToks Chinese owners to sell the app or face a U.S. ban.

Getting the defense increase was the leverage and excuse for funding the entire omnibus in the first place without getting the reforms we wanted on any of these other issues, he said. According to Roy, Republicans tell him when appropriations are being negotiated, We just cant risk defense.

Well if thats what you do, youre never going to change the town, he said.

Roy, among a handful of Republicans appointed to the House Rules Committee who have blocked leadership efforts to pass legislation, made no apologies for breaking the place.

He said it was an enormous accomplishment that a majority of the House GOP conference opposed the $60.8 billion Ukraine aid portion of the supplemental, though by a narrow margin with 112 Republicans opposed and 101 in favor. He applauded the fact that 55 Republicansvoted against the rulefor floor debate on the package.

And people say, well, Chip, thats breaking the place. Yes, yes, Roy said. We need to change the way this place is not working.

Reviewing the current Congress, Roy said Republicans have in my opinion kept the ball on our side of the field. Specifically, he said, the GOP has heldnondefense discretionary spending flatand kept amnesty for undocumented immigrants off the table.

All we talked about this last year and a half was border security, he said. We didnt achieve it. But we didnt allow the Democrats to start moving the ball down the field and have a debate about amnesty. He added, It matters where you set the goal post and how you set your mission.

But Roy complained about some areas where he thinks Republicans have fallen short. That includes appropriating billions of dollars for the Department of Homeland Security, spending money to provide food, shelter and health care to illegal aliens, and funding the Pentagon without peeling back the diversity, equity, inclusion requirements, which he said are tearing down the morale of the Department of Defense.

Roy said the biggest challenge for conservatives is to reverse the policy trajectory espoused by a small little enclave of elites that are using an outsized amount of money to go disrupt this great country.

He said those policies are driving up the cost of everybodys way of life and making it impossible for the hard-working American to figure out how to achieve the American dream.

Roy said the answer is to use the power of the purse.

Literally just stop writing the check and then you can wrest away that growing and obscene government thats killing the American dream for the average American, he said.

Read more:
Roy eyes steamroller agenda if Republicans sweep in November - Roll Call

My co-blogger Orin Kerr argues that the NY Falsifying Business Records law, Section 175.10 includes two elements: 1) falsifying business records; and 2) doing so "when the intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof." Orin hypothesizes that the part of the law mentioned in Part 2 of this test need not survive First Amendment scrutiny by itself. As a matter of statutory interpretation, Orin suggests that the second element of the Falsifying Business Records charge need only be an element of the Section 175.10 crime. And an element of the crime need not be constitutional itself.

This is not true. Donald Trump had a First Amendment right to spend money to win the 2016 presidential election by safeguarding his reputation, and Orin's construction of NY law would burden Trump's core political speech. NY cannot have a two element crime, both of which elements need to be proved, if one of the elements violates the First Amendment. Orin analogizes Trump's case to the case of someone who engages in battery during a political debate. Obviously, there is no right to engage in battery while engaging in First Amendment protected debate. But, there is a First Amendment right to spend money to protect your reputation and your family right before a presidential election by paying false accusers to stay silent. Doing so is not a crime.

Alvin Bragg says that the other crime that Trump falsified business records to conceal is that described by NY Election Law Section 17-152: "Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means *** shall be guilty of a misdemeanor." Paying hush money, like buying time for television and radio advertisements, is not an "unlawful means" of trying to win an election. The First Amendment completely protects what Trump is alleged to have done in 2016.

In fact, the person who has acted wrongly here is Alvin Bragg who for the first time in 235 years of American history has indicted a former president who is the Republican nominee for president in 2024 just to muddy him up. Bragg did this by splashing the irrelevant facts of the Stormy Daniels hush money allegation all over the front pages of the newspaper just as the 2024 presidential campaign gets kicked off. Republican nominee Trump cannot campaign during three vital weeks of the campaign season because Alvin Bragg has him locked up in a NY courtroom where the judge has subjected Trump to a gag order. Bragg and the judge trying Trump's NY State criminal case have committed constitutional torts for which they cannot be sued only because of our dumb prosecutorial and judicial immunity rules.

Read the original:
Trump's Trial and the First Amendment - Reason

Court-imposed gag orders put limits on speech, so how are they legal under the First Amendment? We VERIFY what the Supreme Court has said on the issue.

Former President Trump has been fined $9,000 by a judge and declared to be in contempt of court in the New York criminal trial where hes accused of covering up hush money payments to a porn star.

The judge said Trump violated an order not to attack witnesses and other key participants in the trial when he repeatedly posted about them on Truth Social.

Such court-imposed orders are often called gag orders, and since they restrict what a person is allowed to say publicly, VERIFY reader Richard wondered how they can be legal given the First Amendments free speech protections.

Are gag orders constitutional?

The Supreme Court has found some gag orders are constitutional and others are not. The First Amendment right to free speech must be weighed with the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial, on a case-by-case basis.

Gag orders arent common, but in certain cases theyre used to prevent potential witness tampering or attempting to unduly influence jurors through public media campaigns. Courts can assess whether gag orders are constitutional on a case-by-case basis.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to free speech, but the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a fair and speedy trial, and sometimes these two things can be at odds.

This is a classic confrontation of constitutional rights, said Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.

The Supreme Court has ruled both that excessive public speech about a trial can result in it becoming unfair, making gag orders necessary, and that judges attempts to quash such speech can go too far and infringe on First Amendment rights.

There are several key cases that shape how the Supreme Court currently views the constitutionality of gag orders.

For example, in the 1950s a murder trial in Cleveland became a media circus. Personal information about witnesses and jurors was widely publicized, the judge told a reporter he thought the defendant was guilty, and jurors were allowed to make phone calls during deliberations.

The defendant was convicted, but in 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction and found that the publicity resulted in an unfair trial.

The Supreme Court said then that it was within the rights of a judge in order to protect the Sixth Amendment rights of a defendant to tell those who are participating in the trial that they may not speak publicly, including to the press, about the case, said Paulson.

After that ruling, some judges began to clamp down on what could be publicly said during their trials, both by participants and the press. But that authority only goes so far.

In 1976, the Supreme Court struck down a gag order issued by a judge in Nebraska, in which he ordered local media not to report details of a murder trial. The justices ruled its almost always unconstitutional for a judge to tell the press what they can and cant publish, but they didnt restrict gag orders on trial participants.

[The Supreme Court] basically said: you can tell the people that the news media get their information from not to talk, but you can't tell the news media not to talk, said Paulson. Important principle. Survives to this day.

These two rulings helped establish the current parameters judges use when issuing gag orders: balancing free speech with ensuring a fair trial.

"With gag orders, it's actually a compromise. What it does is say: You're a member of this trial, you are either a defendant, you're a lawyer, you're an official. And in the interest of protecting the Sixth Amendment rights of this defendant, we're going to tell you to shut up for a while, said Paulson. On the other hand, what can I tell the press? You can write about anything you want to. You can write freely about the events in the courtroom, you can analyze the case, you can report whatever you'd like. So on one hand, the Sixth Amendment is protected, and on the other the First Amendment is protected. It's actually a pretty good balance.

In Trumps New York case, the judge has argued a gag order is necessary to prevent Trump from potentially intimidating witnesses and jurors.

Judges, generally speaking, have discretion to decide how to weigh the First and Sixth Amendment factors in these cases, but gag orders can be appealed to higher courts.

Trump appealed the New York gag order, but the appellate court rejected his claims. His lawyers have not said whether they will try to appeal again to a higher court.

It's rare for any decision along those lines to be overturned by an appellate court, and it would be extraordinarily rare [for] someone to be able to get the Supreme Court to hear it, said Paulson. So bottom line is: establishing a reasonable limit on the participants is almost always going to be upheld.

The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter, text alerts and our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Learn More

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See the original post:
Are gag orders constitutional? SCOTUS says it depends - VERIFYThis.com

Every day breathless articles appear in theNew York Times,and through-out the liberal media, about Donald Trump's allegedly lawless payment of hush money to help out his 2016 presidential campaign. In fact, Donald Trump has a First Amendment right to spend money, as does the Trump Organization, to further his electoral ambitions. InBuckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court wrongly upheld expenditure limits on how much non-candidates could spend on elections, but it rightly held that wealthy individuals like Donald Trump could spend as much as they wanted to spend of their own money on election campaigns. And, they can spend their money on hush money payments, television or radio advertisements, or in any other legal way that would further their own campaigns or electoral ambitions.

To the extent that Trump was spending his own money in the 2016 presidential campaign, he had a First Amendment right to do that underBuckley v. Valeo. To the extent he was spending Trump organization money, Trump also had a First Amendment right to do that too because the campaign expenditure limits ofBuckley v. Valeo are now, and have always been, unconstitutional. Buckley v. Valeo should be overruled insofar as it upheld as constitutional any limits on spending money by anyone or by any organization to influence the outcome of an election.

The accounting entries of the hush money payments as "legal expenses" simply reflects the fact that Trump did not believe the allegations against him were true, or that he was protecting his family, or that he considered the payoffs to extortionate porn actresses and others as being settlements that did not confirm his guilt but that helped his 2016 campaign, which they did. The allegedly inaccurate accounting entries are at most misdemeanor offenses. The government in the NY State District Attorney's prosecution does not accuse Trump of embezzling funds from his organization or of fraud, nor could it do so.

Donald Trump should appeal any verdict against him in the NY State criminal case to the U.S. Supreme Court. He should assert his First Amendment rights underBuckley v. Valeo and to the extent that Buckley would allow a judgment against Trump to stand, Trump should ask that the entire edifice of campaign expenditure limits set up inBuckley v. Valeo be overruled. Legal experts know thatBuckley v. Valeo was "a derelict on the waters of the law" even before the recent appointments to the Supreme Court, and inTrump v. New York the U.S. Supreme Court should declareBuckley v. Valeo to be dead on arrival.

All that Trump has to do to win this farcical criminal case against him is to assert his First Amendment rights in every level of New York State's court system asking at every step along the way thatBuckley v. Valeobe overruled insofar as it forbade the expenditures in question. Obviously, no-one can spend money to bribe election officials or engage in other illegal conduct. But, nothing Trump has done is remotely illegal. Trump had a First Amendment right to make the hush money payments that he allegedly made in 2016.

See the original post here:
Donald Trump Has a First Amendment Right to Pay Hush Money to Support his Electoral Ambitions - Reason