Kevin McCarthy Officially Boots Schiff and Swalwell From House Intelligence Committee

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has unilaterally moved to remove Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee.

McCarthy made his decision to reject the pair’s reappointments to the committee on Tuesday night, citing supposed “misuse of this panel during the 116th and 117th Congress.”

At a conference the same evening, McCarthy expounded after a reporter asked how he can support placing serial liar George Santos on committees while blocking Democrats from serving on particular ones. The House speaker spoke forcefully as he recycled old talking points.

McCarthy cited a briefing he received on Swalwell’s alleged connections to a Chinese spy, arguing that this disqualified Swalwell from serving on the Intelligence Committee. Axios reported on what actually happened: A suspected Chinese operative developed ties with politicians in the Bay Area, interacting with Ro Khanna, Tulsi Gabbard, Swalwell, and others. But Swalwell has not been found to have actually done anything wrong; once the FBI alerted Swalwell about its concern for the operative, he immediately cut ties with her.

As for Schiff, McCarthy seems to be targeting him for allegedly lying about whether he knew the whistleblower who prompted the impeachment inquiry into whether former President Trump pressured Ukrainian President Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden in exchange for military aid. There’s no hard proof of Schiff lying about this, and McCarthy and Republicans just as well have aimed to invalidate the impeachment inquiry overall.

McCarthy had said that he will respect the will of the voters to defend his refusal to block Santos from committees, or even push for his removal; he has used the same logic in saying he will still allow Schiff and Swalwell on other committees. A good-faith interpretation would show McCarthy is at least principled in his committee delegation. But his rationale for blocking Schiff and Swalwell from committees seems less about actual security concerns and more about teeing off on Democrats who heavily invested in impeaching Trump.

In the last Congress, Democrats removed Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from committees after they incited violence against other members of Congress.

Meanwhile, McCarthy has been pushing the House to vote to block Representative Ilhan Omar from serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she has served for the past four years. A Somali American Muslim woman and vocal critic of human rights abuses by governments—including ones the United States has allied itself with—Omar is an easy target for a Republican Party undergirded by both racism and undying allegiance to America, no matter the abuses it is guilty of or contributes to.

Schiff, Swalwell, and Omar released a joint statement calling out McCarthy’s actions as being part of a “corrupt bargain in his desperate, and nearly failed attempt to win the Speakership, a bargain that required political vengeance against the three of us.”

The United States will send Abrams tanks to Ukraine, President Joe Biden announced Wednesday, reversing course on a major step in aiding Kyiv retake territory from Russia.

Washington will send 31 tanks to Ukraine, Biden said during a press conference.

Early reports on Tuesday evening of the U.S. agreeing to send Abrams tanks likely helped convince Germany to provide Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The German government confirmed Wednesday that it would send 14 Leopard tanks to Kyiv. Berlin had been holding out on sending battle tanks until Washington agreed to do the same, as Russia has repeatedly warned that providing tanks to Ukraine would be seen as a major provocation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed Germany’s decision, saying it would provide a “green light for partners to supply similar weapons.” Other Western nations such as Poland have been waiting for Germany’s go-ahead before providing Leopards to Ukraine.

The U.S. had previously resisted sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine, citing difficulties with maintenance and training. Just last week, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told journalists that Pentagon officials were worried about giving Kyiv a piece of equipment that its soldiers “can’t repair, they can’t sustain, and that they over the long term can’t afford.”

Ukraine has repeatedly asked for battle tanks, which both its leaders and international defense analysts believe could help turn the tide of the now nearly yearlong war.

Al Jazeera defense analyst Alex Gatopoulos noted that modern Western tanks have been designed with the specific goal of defeating Russian-made ones. He also pointed out that southern Ukraine is flat, making the terrain ideal for using tanks as “armoured fists that can punch through defensive lines.”

The decision to send Abrams tanks also comes as opinions in Washington begin to split over Ukraine. Republicans, particularly in the House of Representatives, are losing their taste for providing so much aid to Kyiv. Meanwhile, Democrats have been pushing Biden to officially designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, something he has been adamant he will not do.

This post has been updated.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is under fire for his comments about Jamal Khashoggi, the The Washington Post journalist who was brutally murdered by agents of the Saudi Arabian regime in 2018.

Khashoggi was a columnist at the Post and a prominent critic of the Saudi kingdom. He was last seen alive in October 2018 entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect paperwork. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is accused of ordering a team of Saudi agents to capture and dismember Khashoggi.

In his new book, Pompeo magnanimously acknowledges that Khashoggi’s killing was “outrageous, unacceptable, horrific,” but he spends several pages decrying what he considers the “disproportionate global uproar” and “faux outrage” over the journalist’s death.

Pompeo argues that Khashoggi was an activist, not a journalist, and his death was blown out of proportion by a media that was trying to fracture U.S.-Saudi ties.

Post publisher and CEO Fred Ryan released a statement Tuesday slamming Pompeo’s comments as “shameful” and “vile falsehoods,” noting that the CIA—which Pompeo led from 2017 to 2018—had concluded that Khashoggi was murdered on the orders of MBS, as the Saudi prince is known.

Pompeo proceeded to dig his heels in, insisting the U.S. was better off not trying to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah state”—which President Joe Biden seems to have failed to do anyway—and falsely labeling Khashoggi a “part-time stringer,” as if his employment status makes his fate more or less worthy of outrage.

“Whatever [Pompeo] mentions about my husband, he doesn’t know my husband. He should be silent and shut up the lies about my husband,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, the journalist’s widow, told NBC News. “It is such bad information and the wrong information.… This is not acceptable.”

Pompeo is rumored to be considering a 2024 presidential run and is clearly trying to curry favor among the main base of his former boss Donald Trump. Pompeo is embracing similar themes of friendliness toward Saudi Arabia and strongmen, as well as hostility toward journalists and peddling falsehoods.

Classified government documents were found at the home of former Vice President Mike Pence, CNN reported Tuesday.

Pence’s lawyers found about a dozen classified documents in his Indiana residence last week and immediately alerted the FBI. The discovery is a direct contradiction of Pence’s insistence that he had never taken government records.

When asked in a CNN interview last November if he took classified documents from the White House, Pence responded, “I did not,” while conflictingly nodding his head.

The discovery also comes after multiple batches of classified documents were found in President Joe Biden’s Delaware home and former private office. It is actually oddly easy to take such documents by mistake at higher levels of government, where officials are allowed to keep copies of records, according to Larry Pfeiffer, a former CIA officer who ran the White House situation room under President Barack Obama.

“There’s this level of human frailty here that just plays into this situation,” Pfeiffer told NPR on January 19, after the second batch of Biden documents was found. “I’ve known several people who have retired, and after they retire, they’re going through their box, and it’s like, whoa, how did that get in here?”

Pfeiffer noted that those discoveries are not treated as very big deals. Biden, former President Donald Trump, and now Pence are all under such intense scrutiny because they are either sitting or recent leaders, which is a situation we have not seen before.

Pence also criticized Biden for keeping classified documents, calling out what he considered a “double standard” between the way Biden and Trump have been treated. “It’s just incredibly frustrating to me,” Pence said on the conservative Hugh Hewitt Show, slamming the FBI for “massive overreach.”

In the same CNN interview where he denied taking classified documents, Pence said he saw “no reason to have” such records.

There are huge differences between Biden and Trump, though. Biden, and even Pence, found relatively few documents, immediately alerted the proper authorities, and appear to be cooperating with the investigations into how the classified information ended up there.

Trump, on the other hand, hoarded hundreds of documents and refused to cooperate, resulting in the FBI raiding his Mar-a-Lago estate.

After Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego announced his candidacy for Kyrsten Sinema’s Senate seat on Monday, most congressional Democrats remained noncommittal about who they will back (if not, perhaps, hinting support for Gallego).

There were two notable exceptions, however: West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper, per Punchbowl News. “I think having a voice like that—she says what she thinks. And I think she adds value to the caucus,” Hickenlooper said. “The problem is she’s too moderate as a Democrat—well, that’s half the time what they say about me!”

Hickenlooper also nodded toward Senators Angus King and Bernie Sanders as two independents who caucus with the Democrats, citing them as examples for why Sinema should apparently be seen no differently. “I can’t imagine not supporting her,” he said.

Manchin, meanwhile, said he’s “totally supportive” of Sinema and said leadership “should support someone who brings basically some peace, if you will, or some rational thinking on some of this stuff without being pushed far left and far right.”

It’s understandable why most Democrats aren’t expressing their preferences one way or another. It’s still very early, and Sinema is still a voting and committee-sitting senator in a narrowly Democratic-led Senate. What’s more fascinating is why senators would so publicly express their support for Sinema given how early it is, how Sinema has not even expressed her 2024 intentions, and how Kari Lake or some other far-right Republican may soon announce their candidacy, raising the stakes of the race all the more.

Manchin’s early support for Sinema is unsurprising in a “Manchinema” universe that has plagued politics over recent years, obstructing a voter-won Democratic agenda and watering down legislation in favor of corporations at the expense of everyone else.

Hickenlooper’s support, on the other hand, seems less immediately intuitive. A look at his record at least presents an ideological affinity between him and Sinema. A longtime fossil fuel–favoring politician, Hickenlooper has been a linchpin for corporate influence in government. Hickenlooper famously shilled for fracking at a 2013 hearing, as he described drinking a glass of Haliburton-produced fracking fluid alongside Haliburton executives.

He was one of seven Democrats that joined Republicans to block a fracking ban in 2021.

Hickenlooper has shifted somewhat left on climate, perhaps propelled by the moment or by the 2020 primary challenge against him by Andrew Romanoff, endorsed by the likes of Bill McKibben and the Sunrise Movement. Still, Hickenlooper seems to find some kinship with his fellow “too moderate” Sinema.

The entrance of a Republican like Lake into the race, as well as Sinema’s moves from here on out, will indicate how eager Democrats actually are to rid themselves of her antics and how far they’re willing to go (and risk) to make it happen.