The Daily Signal - Republicans Grill Garland, Tuberville-Pentagon Fight Continues, House Homeland Security Committee Examines “Financial Costs” Of Border Crisis | Sept. 20

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm Virginia Allen. I'm Samantha Sherris. And this is the Daily Cleveland Top News for Wednesday, September 20th. Here are today's headlines. Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before the House Judiciary Committee today. Garland faced a slew of questions about the investigation into the president's son, Hunter Biden. Let's take a listen to Louisiana Republican Representative Mike Johnson's questions to Garland. Has anyone from the White House provided direction at any time to you personally, or to any senior officials at the DOJ regarding how the Hunter Biden investigation was to be carried out. No. Have you had personal contact with anyone at FBI headquarters about the Hunter Biden investigation?

Starting point is 00:01:00 I don't recollect the answer to that question, but FBI works for the Justice Department. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You don't recollect whether you've talked with anybody at FBI headquarters about an investigation of the president's son? I don't believe that I did. I promised the Senate when I came before it for confirmation that I would leave Mr. Weiss in place and that I would not interfere with his investigation. Okay, did you ever... I have kept that promise. All right.

Starting point is 00:01:29 Have you had personal contact with anybody at the Baltimore Field Office on the Hunter Biden matter? No. On July 10, 2023, U.S. Attorney David Weiss told Senator Lindsey Graham, quote, I had discussions with departmental officials regarding potential appointment under 28 U.S.C. Section 515, which would have allowed me to file charges in a district outside my own without the partnership of the local U.S. attorney, end quote. With whom did Mr. Weiss have those discussions? I'm not going to get into the internal deliberations of the department. Oh, but you must, sir. This is important for us. We have oversight responsibility over your department,

Starting point is 00:02:03 and we need these answers. As appropriate, necessary for Mr. Weiss to have conversations with the department. I made clear that if he wanted to bring a case in any jurisdiction, he would be able to do that. The way you do that is to get an order signed by the attorney general called a 515 order. I promised he would be able to do that and he in his letters made clear he understood he would be able to do that. Our colleague Fred Lucas reports that Garland tried to blame the Trump administration during Wednesday's hearing for allowing the statute of limitations to lapse on potential tax charges against First Sun Hunter Biden. But when Garland said so during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee,

Starting point is 00:02:44 Chairman Jim Jordan was having none of it. At several points during the hearing committee, Republicans, pressed the nation's top law enforcement officer on why the investigation of Hunter Biden has moved so slowly. The investigation first began in 2018. Garland told Jordan, much of what you are describing occurred during the Trump administration, during a Justice Department appointed by President Donald Trump.

Starting point is 00:03:11 Jordan Press Garland further. Jordan asked why the Justice Department investigation run by U.S. attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, allowed the statute of limitations to expire for prosecuting the president's son on tax charges that would have stretched back to his time on the board of the Ukrainian energy company, Perisma, while current president Joe Biden was vice president. As vice president to president Barack Obama, Biden oversaw the Obama administration's administration's Ukraine policy. You can find Fred's full report on this story in today's show notes. The Daily Signals, Mary Margaret Olahan, reports that after insisting for months that Republican

Starting point is 00:03:52 Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville was solely responsible for the delay in approving senior military nominations, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer finally folded and began to set up votes on three military nominations. Tuberville planned to bring a motion to the floor today for a vote on General Eric Smith's promotion to U.S. Marine Corps commandant. The move will likely be seen as a win for Tuberville, since it demonstrates that the Democratic leader could have made this move months ago. He appears to have been pushed to action by a procedural maneuver from the Alabama senator. That vote was a new tactic in Tuberville's months-long dispute with the Defense Department over its policy,

Starting point is 00:04:36 allowing for taxpayer-funded abortion, since it would have given. Schumer the opportunity to vote on Smith's promotion. Schumer said today that I have just filed cloture on the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Army Chief of Staff. These men should have already been confirmed. They should already be serving in their new positions. The Senate should not have to go through procedural hoops just to please one brazen and misguided senator. But this is where we are. Clint Brown, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, told the daily signal,

Starting point is 00:05:16 Senator Tuberville's rarely used procedural maneuver would have threatened Senator Schumer's power by forcing a vote on the nomination. Rather than give up power, Schumer decided to schedule votes himself. Brown added, through this trick play, Senator, coach Tuberville, forced Schumer to show his hand that the Senate could have been voting on these noms all along. This proves that it is Democrats who are unwilling to do the work to move these nominations. Still, if Democrats are unwilling to do the work of voting on each individual nominee,

Starting point is 00:05:49 they could pressure DoD to rescind the immoral and legally suspect abortion policy. Tuberville has objected to unanimous consent, the Senate's process of rubber stamping an entire group of nominees without a recorded vote, but said on a number of occasions that Democrats can proceed if they individually vote. vote on each nominee. President Joe Biden nominated Smith to be the Marine Corps's top officer in May, the Daily Signal previously reported, and the Senate Armed Services Committee approved Smith's promotion in June. He is serving as the acting commandant as he waits for the Senate confirmation. The House Homeland Security Committee also held a hearing today titled the Financial Cost of Mayorgas's

Starting point is 00:06:34 open border. Congressman Mark Green is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Committee and opened the hearing by laying out some of the financial costs associated with illegal immigration and an insecure border. According to Green, Congress's Joint Economic Committee reported that the opioid epidemic cost our country almost $1.5 trillion in 2020. Green said that number likely rose significantly over the past two and a half years as the amount of fentanyl coming across the southern border has increased. Citing numbers from the Department of Health and Human Services, Green went on to say that Medicaid spending on emergency services

Starting point is 00:07:15 for undocumented aliens in fiscal year 2021 alone costs $7 billion, compared to $1.6 billion in fiscal year 2016. Today's hearing launched the fourth part of a five-pronged investigation, taking a closer look at the ongoing border crisis and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' handling of that crisis. Let's take a listen to what House Homeland Security Vice Chair, Michael Guest, a Republican from Mississippi, had to say during today's hearing regarding the financial cost of this crisis. Just for perspective, I would like to relate that to the budget of my and the ranking members'

Starting point is 00:07:57 great state, the great state of Mississippi. our budget for physical year 22 was $5.8 billion, and our budget for physical year 2023 is $6.3 billion. So the information you have provided to us says that New York will spend next year almost as much money as the entire state of Mississippi spends to find our entire state government. We'll leave a link in today's show notes with the full report on today's hearing. Our colleague Tyler O'Neill reports that a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at a

Starting point is 00:08:43 leading university in southeastern Virginia may have violated her school's policy by using work email to forward a message slamming conservative school board candidates as hateful and urging readers to canvas for the candidate's opponents shortly before early voting begins. One school board member targeted in the forwarded email told the daily signal that she is considering a lawsuit. Anti-hate canvassing this Saturday and Sunday reads the subject line of the email forwarded by Catherine Cotrupe, interim assistant dean and director of the Office of Diversity Inclusion and Strategic Partnerships at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech. Neither Catrupe nor Virginia Tech responded to a request to confirm

Starting point is 00:09:30 or deny the email's authenticity. Katroupi wrote in forwarding the email, Sharing in case you're interested. The original email from an unknown author warns readers that school board elections in Montgomery County, Virginia have been hijacked by a lot of the same anti-trans, anti-woke rhetoric that we saw in the last gubernatorial race and the upcoming presidential race.

Starting point is 00:09:54 The email forwarded by Virginia Tech's diversity officer goes on to target two schoolbird candidates. candidates running hateful campaigns, Mark Meyer in District B and Lindsay Rich in District E. It urges readers to support those candidates' opponents, Penny Franklin and Derek Roundtree, respectively. Meyer previously served as the school district superintendent. The original sender writes, it would be great if we could get some young energy to advocate for Penny Franklin and Derek Roundtree on online platforms I'm too old to know about or use. Check out Tyler's full report in today's show notes. And finally today, the Washington Free Beacon is reporting that

Starting point is 00:10:34 Ibram X. Kendi's Center for Anti-Racist Research has produced just two original research papers since its founding in June of 2020, according to a review by the outlet. The Washington Free Beacon also reported that output for the Center's scholars largely consist of op-ed or commentary posted on the center's website and that the group's plan to maintain the nation's largest online database of racial inequity data in the United States quickly fizzled out. And the database has been dormant since 2021. The outlet also reported that in December 2020, the center launched the racial data lab, which Kendi claimed would give us the ability to see the hotspots of racial inequity in real time in this country. country. As of September, the racial data lab only compiled information on COVID-19 infections and deaths. That COVID-19 tracker stopped collecting information in March of 2021. The center has since

Starting point is 00:11:39 removed the names of anyone who worked on that project from its website. We'll leave a link for the Washington free beacon piece in today's show notes. But with that, that's going to do it for today's edition of the Daily Signal's top news. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our morning right here in this podcast feed where we interview lawmakers, experts, and leading conservative voices. Join us tomorrow. We're new for the Daily Signal Interview Edition. Our colleague Tyler O'Neill is going to be sitting down with Patty Garibay, founder of American Heritage Girls. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcasts and help us reach even more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review.

Starting point is 00:12:19 You read and appreciate all of your feedback. Thanks again for joining us today. Have a great night. We'll see you right back here. tomorrow morning. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Republicans Grill Garland, Tuberville-Pentagon Fight Continues, House Homeland Security Committee Examines “Financial Costs” Of Border Crisis | Sept. 20

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