House GOP revolt against Trump sets up tough Senate battle on January 6 probe
CNN
Thirty-five House Republicans chose the truth and American democracy over Donald Trump's personality cult. Now their Senate colleagues face the same battle of conscience over the effort to investigate the Capitol insurrection.
The House of Representatives voted to establish an independent, bipartisan commission on Wednesday, but the bill still has a cliffhanger path ahead as supporters seek votes of 10 Republican senators needed to usher it into law. It remains an open, if perplexing, question if Republican senators will stand in the way of an investigation into an armed attack that sent them fleeing for safety. The revolt of 35 House Republicans against their leader, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy -- who pushed strongly for the bill's defeat -- represents the strongest rebuke yet of the former President from his own party ranks, far more than the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol mob scene. The surprising size of the Republican vote for the commission may indicate the politics of the issue are not yet set in stone and could give some Republicans pause as they consider their position on investigating the insurrection.
After rarely being seen in public in the two weeks since he delivered a brief, 46-second victory speech on election night, JD Vance reemerged this week to play one of the most important roles he will be expected to fill as Donald Trump’s No. 2: His point person on Capitol Hill.
A Florida man was arrested Wednesday and charged in a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange this week, according to the FBI.
The Senate on Wednesday voted down an effort led by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to block a series of planned US weapons sales to Israel.
Republicans on the House Ethics Committee fell in line behind GOP leaders and voted not to release the results of their investigation into Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz, despite growing calls from the Senate GOP to make the findings public ahead of his confirmation hearing.
Senate Democrats have confirmed some of President Joe Biden’s picks for the federal bench this week in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for a total GOP blockade of judicial nominations – in part because several Republicans involved with the Trump transition process have been missing votes.
A former University of Virginia student pleaded guilty Wednesday to fatally shooting three football players and wounding two other students on the Charlottesville campus in 2022.
Donald Trump is considering a right-wing media personality and people who have served on his US Secret Service detail to run the agency that has been plagued by its failure to preempt two alleged assassination attempts on Trump this summer, sources familiar with the president-elect’s thinking tell CNN.
The United States has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, on the grounds it would not have secured the release of hostages.
A Democratic election official in Pennsylvania offered an impassioned apology Wednesday for claiming “precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country” to justify counting about 600 faulty ballots in defiance of state Supreme Court rulings.
On one side of the Capitol, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace vowed to “stand in the way” of Democratic Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, the first out transgender woman elected to Congress, using women’s bathrooms in the US Capitol.
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Matthew Whitaker, who served as acting attorney general during Trump’s first term, as his pick to be US ambassador to NATO.