Morning Wire - House Rules Reform & Biden’s Classified Documents | 1.11.23

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

House Republicans make good on some promises, details have emerged about the classified documents found at President Biden’s private office at the Penn Biden Center, and Prince Harry’s bombshell memoir hits bookstores. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.  Black Rifle Coffee: Get 10% off your first order or Coffee Club subscription with code WIRE: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Balance of Nature: Get $25 off your first order as a preferred customer plus a FREE Fiber & Spice. Use promo code WIRE at checkout: https://www.balanceofnature.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just days after his election as House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy is making good on Republican promises, moving to rescind funding for the IRS and considering impeachment of a Biden cabinet member. He's nothing but a gross dereliction of duty. I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley, with Georgia Howl. It's Wednesday, January 11th, and this is Morning Wire. More details have emerged about the classified documents found at President Biden's private office at the Penn Biden Center. If you're dealing with somebody who has privileged access to classify the information, they have a higher responsibility to treat it carefully. We speak to former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy about the case and its comparisons to those involving Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And Prince Harry's bombshell memoir hit bookstores yesterday.

We break down the most shocking revelations and why Harry says it was necessary to go scorched earth on the British royal family. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Black Rifle Coffee has expanded their team of active duty service members, veterans, and veteran family members, all thanks to your support. This year alone, they were able to donate 120,000 bags of coffee to veterans and first responders. If you want to keep supporting this incredible company, go to blackriflecoffee.com and use promo code Wire for 10% off your purchase and your first coffee club order. That's Black Rifle Coffee.com promo code Wire. Black Rifle Coffee, America's Coffee.

The newly Republican-controlled House was busy this week, passing a series of rules that will reform the chamber, voting on legislation to defund the IRS, and launching an impeachment inquiry into a Biden cabinet member. Who are the details on what we're seeing out of Washington and how Republicans are handling their newly won majority in the House chamber as Daily Wire's senior editor, Cabot Phillips. So, Cabot, what's happening in the House?

Well, at the start of each session, members vote on a rules package that basically determines how Congress will be run for the next two years. And this year's rules will include a number of measures that remove power from party leaders and create more transparency. Remember, that was a big part of what those GOP holdouts were argued. Yeah, tell us about some of those specific changes. So, for example, up until recently, any House member could initiate a recall vote on the speaker, which obviously played a significant role in holding the speaker accountable to the rank and file members. But in 2019, Democrats passed a measure amending that rule so that only members of party leadership could initiate a recall vote.

But this Congress will abolish that rule. rule and allow any member to call for a vote on the speaker. There's also a new rule that will require a 72-hour window for all legislation before it's voted on. Members say that they have to, you know, have time to read bills before they're decided on. Right. And the other big change that's causing controversy involves new spending. Under the new rules, any spending that will raise the national debt must be accompanied by offsetting spending cuts. That is, Angerton Republicans, who say the rule could result in decreased defense spending. One of the first things we've seen this new House focus on is the IRS. Tell us about that bill. Yeah, House Republicans kicked off their

official tenure by passing a bill that would rescind $70 billion in new IRS funding that Democrats had voted for last year. Remember, as part of that Democrat plan, the federal government would hire tens of thousands of new IRS agents. This bill, which passed on a party line vote, would revoke that new funding. House Republicans will also soon vote on another bill that goes even further, abolishing the IRS altogether, eliminating the national income tax, and implementing a new national consumption tax instead. Now, that bill being brought to the floor was one of the concessions Kevin McCarthy made to Republican holdouts in exchange for their support in his speaker race. It is worth noting, with Democrats controlling the Senate, neither of these measures is likely

to pass, but still noteworthy. Right. Now, during the midterms, we heard GOP candidates promised to impeach members of the Biden administration, and it looks like that could actually happen now. It could. Texas rep Pat Fallon introduced articles of impeachment this week against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorcas, claiming that, quote, Majorcas policies have undermined law enforcement activities at our southern border and eroded our immigration system, undermined border patrol morale, and jeopardized American national security. More specifically, the articles accused Mayorkas of failing to faithfully execute the Secure Defense Act of 2006, which requires the DHS Secretary to, quote,

maintain operation control over the border. They also accused him of perjuring himself before Congress when he testified that the border was secure. Here's how Rep Fallon summed it up in a newsmax interview this week. If you say under oath that the border secure and then you're caught on a hot mic and when you didn't know that you were being heard that the border was chaos, you're clearly lying in one of those two instances. So we've got to hold him to account. All right, so some serious accusations.

So what happens now? Well, the impeachment files have been delivered to the House Judiciary Committee. Members there look into the matter themselves, then hold a vote on whether they want to proceed or not. If the vote passes, the impeachment proceedings will move to the House floor for another vote before heading on to the Senate. Yeah, well, we're already seeing some of the impacts of a Republican-held House. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Anytime. That's Daily Wire's Senior Editor, Cabot Phillips. On Monday night, we learned that President Biden had 10 classified documents from his time as vice president stored at his private office in the Washington-based

think tank, the Penn Biden Center. The discovery came back in November before the midterm elections, but the news is just being reported now. We've since learned that the classified documents may contain intelligence materials on Ukraine, Iran, and the UK. President Biden addressed the issue for the first time on Tuesday, saying he was, quote, surprised by the development. I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office.

But I don't know what's in the documents. My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were. I've turned over the boxes. They've turned over the boxes to the archives, and we're cooperating fully. Joining us to discuss is Andy McCarthy, a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a former chief assistant U.S. attorney. So, Andy, you've written an analysis on this developing case, and it's parallels with two other famous cases, those of Trump and Hillary Clinton. First, what do we know for certain so far in terms of Biden's handling of these documents? Well, it's early days, so we don't really know as much as we'd like to know, especially

since this all happened November 2nd, so you would think we'd have more details by now. But the reporting suggests that we're dealing with 10 documents, some of which are very highly classified. They were recovered when the lawyers for Biden were packing up the office. They located them. The reporting indicates that they immediately let the National Archives know. so they were retained in a place that they shouldn't have been. So potentially you're dealing with the violation of the laws to control the protection of classified information. Now, there's been a lot of comparisons between this case

and the potential case against President Trump over the classified documents and also Hillary Clinton's private server. Are those comparisons fair? Yeah, they're fair, but, you know, we have to be objective about them. I've always thought that the big problem that the Justice Department has in trying to make a classified information case against Trump in connection with the Mar-a-Lago documents is that Hillary Clinton got a pass for really egregious behavior in terms of not only mishandling but destroying classified information and government

records, including under circumstances where it was known to her that Congress was interested in those documents and they might be relevant to various investigations. So that creates, the prosecutors a high bar. The fact that she got a pass means that they really are obliged to try to show if they want to prosecute Trump that what he did is uniquely awful. So what I've always thought all along was that gives the prosecutors a small margin for error. And it obviously is very bad for their case to find that now the incumbent president, even if he's involved in an offense that by degree is not anywhere near as serious as what Trump is accused of doing. In kind, it's really in principle pretty much the same conduct that Trump engaged in, the illegal retention of documents,

highly classified documents that were kept in a place that they shouldn't have been. And potentially other government information, too, even if it's not classified because with respect to Trump, they've tried to criminalize the fact that he had other records that weren't classified. So again, this development, I don't want to say devastating because that overstates it, but this is a very bad development for people who are trying to build a case against Trump. Legally speaking, could this actually be problematic for President Biden? Sure. You know, look, he's literally, as Mrs. Glitton was, in the ambit of someone who can be prosecuted under the espionage act,

and therefore they can be prosecuted if they are grossly negligent, the mishandling of that information. So we're now talking about highly classified information that obviously got to a place that it wasn't supposed to be. So, you know, that doesn't mean he gets prosecuted. There's a long history of not prosecuting government officials for this kind of conduct, but it certainly brings them within the ambit of people who could be prosecuted. So potentially very serious development here.

Andy, thanks so much for joining us. That was National Reviews, Annie McCarthy. Prince Harry's new memoir titled Spare hit bookstores yesterday, but he's already made some headlines with his shocking claims about the royal family and some high-profile interviews. Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham joins us now to detail some of the most explosive revelations and how the British public is reacting.

You know, publishers sometimes have a problem selling these celebrity tell-alls when they don't necessarily serve up all of those dishy details that are promised? Well, I don't think that's going to be a problem this time. A huge focus of the book is Harry's resentment and anger toward his family for wrongs that he believes they've committed against him and his wife, Megan Markle. So he paints an especially unflattering picture of his stepmother, Camilla, and he calls the queen consort dangerous due to her relationships with the British press. He says that Camilla trades information with the media in an attempt to boost her popularity. And

Then on another front, he claims Prince William called Megan difficult, rude, and abrasive, and that this led to a physical fight between the brothers where William actually knocked him to the floor. He also says that throughout his childhood, King Charles would make hurtful jokes about not really being his father. Basically, he would tease Harry about those tabloid conspiracy theories that his real father might be Princess Diana's former bodyguard James Hewitt. And then finally, he divulges some details about what, frankly, seem to be some pretty petty arguments between Megan and Kate in the run-up to Harry and Megan's wedding about things like dress alterations. So pretty common for anyone who's ever been in a big family wedding. Right. Now, there were also some interesting revelations about Harry's wild past.

Yes, Harry confesses to some extensive drug use that starts when he was 17 using cocaine. He talks about taking psychedelic mushrooms at the home of friends actress Courtney Cox in 2016. And then he even confesses to inhaling laughing gas that was actually meant for his wife, Megan, when they were at the hospital for their son Archie's birth in 2019. So only a couple of years ago. Now, aside from making a lot of money, what does it seem like Harry's motivation is for writing this? I mean, is he trying to burn bridges with the royal family? You know, that's a good question.

Harry says things like this memoir, the Netflix series, the Oprah sit down, that all of those are the only way that he and Megan can combat the negative press that the palace has been secretly engineering against them. So here's what he told CNN's Anderson Cooper. You say you tried to do this privately. And every single time I've tried to do it privately, there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife. They will feed or have a conversation with

the correspondent. And that correspondent would literally be spoon-fed information and write the story. And in the bottom of it, they will say that they've reached out the Buckingham Palace for comment.

But the whole story is Buckingham Palace commenting. So when we're being told for the last six years, we can't put a statement out to protect you, but you do it for other members of the family, that becomes a point

when silence is betrayal. Now, some palace watchers have also highlighted Princess Diana's transparency about her purpose, personal life as the model Harry and Megan may be trying to follow here. They point to a similar book in particular that was from 1992 that covered Diana's struggles with bulimia, thoughts of suicide she was having, and some clashes that she had with the royal family. But I do think it's

important to note that Diana did keep a degree of separation in that book. It was a biography that she participated in. It was not a first-person memoir. Diana's model, doesn't seem to be working for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. UK polls have Harry's popularity at a record low with two-thirds of the British public saying that they have a negative opinion of him. And that's quite a swing from 2018 right after he married Megan when he was actually the most popular royal with a 77% positive rating. Well, it'll be interesting to see those numbers after people get their hands on this book.

Megan, thanks for reporting. That was Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham. Well, that's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know. The American Heart Association recommends four to five servings each of fruits and vegetables every single day. Now, that's no small task, especially given your busy schedule. Balance of Nature fruit and veggie capsules are a convenient way to consume essential nutritional ingredients on the daily. Go to Balance of Nature.com and use promo code wire for $25 off your first order as a preferred customer, plus a free fiber and spice supplement. That's balance of nature.com.

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