New Brett Kavanaugh Sexual Assault Allegations Revealed in Secret Sundance Doc

Daily Beast

New Brett Kavanaugh Sexual Assault Allegations Revealed in Secret Sundance Doc

Nick Schager – January 21, 2023

Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation to the Supreme Court was embroiled in controversy when multiple women accused him of sexual assault. One of them, Christine Blasey Ford, testified before Congress about the alleged attempted rape she suffered at his hands in high school. Justice is a horrifying and infuriating inquiry into those claims, told in large part by friends of Ford, lawyers and medical experts, and another of Kavanaugh’s alleged victims: Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of his at Yale.

Most damning of all, it features a never-heard-before audio recording made by one of Kavanaugh’s Yale colleagues—Partnership for Public Service president and CEO Max Stier—that not only corroborates Ramirez’s charges, but suggests that Kavanaugh violated another unnamed woman as well.

A last-minute addition to this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Justice is the first feature documentary helmed by Doug Liman, a director best known for Hollywood hits like Swingers, Go, The Bourne Identity, and Edge of Tomorrow. His latest is far removed from those fictional mainstream efforts, caustically censuring Kavanaugh and the political process that elevated him to the nation’s highest judicial bench, and casting a sympathetic eye on Ford, Ramirez ,and their fellow accusers.

Liman’s film may not deliver many new bombshells, but he and writer/producer Amy Herdy makes up for a relative dearth of explosive revelations by lucidly recounting this ugly chapter in recent American history, as well as by giving voice to women whose allegations were picked apart, mocked and, ultimately, ignored.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Win McNamee/Getty</div> — Win McNamee/Getty

The biggest eye-opener in Justice comes more than midway through its compact and efficient 85-minute runtime, when Liman receives a tip that leads him to an anonymous individual who provides a tape made by Stier shortly after the FBI—compelled by Ford’s courageous and heartrending testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee—briefly reopened its investigation into embattled then-nominee Kavanaugh.

In it, Stier relays that he lived in the same Yale dorm as Kavanaugh and, one evening, wound up in a room where he saw a severely inebriated Kavanaugh with his pants down, at which point a group of rowdy soccer players forced a drunk female freshman to hold Kavanaugh’s penis. Stier states that he knows this tale “first-hand,” and that the young woman in question did not subsequently remember the incident, nor did she want to come forward after she’d seen the vile treatment that Ford and Ramirez were subjected to by the public, the media, and the government. The Daily Beast has reached out to Justice Kavanaugh for comment about the fresh allegations.

Stier goes on to explain that, though he didn’t know Ramirez, he had heard from classmates about her separate, eerily similar encounter with Kavanaugh, which she personally describes in Justice. According to Ramirez, an intoxicated Kavanaugh exposed himself right in front of her face in college, and that she suppressed memories of certain aspects of this trauma until she was contacted by The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow.

Christine Blasey Ford’s Grace Exposes Her Questioners’ Cruelty

As Ramirez narrates in a trembling tone that seems on the perpetual verge of cracking, she suffered this indignity quietly, convinced that she was to blame for it (because she too was under the influence) and humiliated by the guffaws of the other men in the room. Her account is convincing in its specificity, and moving in its anguish.

Ramirez confesses that some of Farrow’s questions made her worried that she still wasn’t recalling everything about that fateful night, and it’s Stier’s recording that appears to fill in a crucial blank. Stier says he was told that, after Kavanaugh stuck his naked member in Ramirez’s face, he went to the bathroom and was egged on by classmates to make himself erect; once he’d succeeded in that task, he returned to harass Ramirez some more.

It’s an additional bit of nastiness in a story drowning in grotesqueness, and Liman lays it all out with the sort of no-nonsense clarity that only amplifies one’s shock, revulsion and dismay—emotions that go hand-in-hand with outrage, which is stoked by the numerous clips of Kavanaugh refuting these accusations with unconvincing fury and falsehoods.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty</div> — Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty

Through juxtapositions of Kavanaugh’s on-the-record statements and various pieces of evidence, Justice reveals the many lies advanced by the judge in order to both sway public opinion and to give Republicans enough reasonable-doubt cover to vote in favor of his confirmation.

Moreover, in a lengthy segment about text conversations between Kavanaugh’s college buddies and Ramirez’s Yale classmate Kerry Berchem, the film persuasively suggests that Kavanaugh and his team were aware of Ford and Ramirez’s charges before they became public, and sought to preemptively counter them by planting alternate-narrative seeds with friends and acquaintances.

While Liman relies a bit too heavily on graphical text to convey some of this, the idea that Kavanaugh (or those closest to him) conspired to keep his apparent crimes secret—along with his general reputation as a boozing party-hard menace—nonetheless comes through loud and clear.

Surprisingly, although Ford is seen speaking to Liman just off-camera at the beginning of Justice, she otherwise doesn’t appear except in archival footage. Still, her presence is ubiquitous throughout the documentary, which generates further anger by noting that the FBI ignored Stier’s tip, along with the majority of the 4,500 others they received regarding Kavanaugh. The Bureau instead chose to send along any “relevant” reports to the very Trump-administration White House that was committed to getting their nominee approved.

The Brett Kavanaugh Probe Should Be About One Thing: Sexual Assault

The effect is to paint the entire affair as a charade and a rigged game in which accusatory women were unfairly and maliciously put on the defensive, and powerful men were allowed to skate by on suspect evasions and flimsy denials.

Justice is more of a stinging, straightforward recap than a formally daring non-fiction work, but its direct approach allows its speakers to make their case with precision and passion. Of that group, Ramirez proves the memorable standout, her commentary as thorough and consistent as it is distressed.

In her remarks about Kavanaugh’s laughter as he perpetrated his misconduct—chortling that Ford also mentions to Congress—she provides an unforgettable detail that encapsulates the arrogant, entitled cruelty of her abuser, as well as the unjust system that saw fit to place him on the nation’s highest legal pedestal.

How an Investor Lost $625,000 and His Faith in George Santos

The New York Times

How an Investor Lost $625,000 and His Faith in George Santos

Grace Ashford, Alexandra Berzon and Michael Gold – January 20, 2023

As Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was running for office, he also sought investors for a company that was accused of running a Ponzi scheme. (Tom Brenner/The New York Times)

A month after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit in 2021 accusing a Florida-based company of operating a Ponzi scheme, one of the firm’s account managers assured an anxious client that his money was safe.

The client, a wealthy investor named Andrew Intrater, had been lured by annual returns of 16% and had invested $625,000 in a fund offered by the company, Harbor City Capital — in part because he trusted and admired the account manager, an aspiring politician named George Santos.

Admiration aside, Intrater wanted to know about his investment and a promised letter of credit that secured it. Santos said that it was already on the way.

“All issued and sent over,” Santos assured him in a text message sent in May 2021.

The letter of credit did not exist, the SEC would later tell a court. The $100 million that Santos told Intrater that he had personally raised for Harbor City did not exist either, the commission said. Nor, seemingly, did the close to $4 million that Santos claimed he and his family had invested in Harbor City.

Santos’ representations form the basis of a sworn declaration that Intrater gave the SEC in May 2022, as part of its Harbor City investigation. Intrater’s interactions with the SEC are the first indication that the commission might be interested in Santos.

Intrater told the SEC that the representations influenced his decision to invest in Santos’ business and political endeavors — an allegation that could leave Santos vulnerable to criminal charges.

“I admired him and fundamentally I thought he’s a hardworking guy — he’s young and he has the ability to win,” Intrater said in a recent interview.

In late December, after Santos’ years of lies were exposed, Intrater reconsidered his appraisal. He shared with The New York Times text messages that he exchanged with Santos, as well as documents and the declaration that he had given to the SEC — all outlining the ways in which he said Santos had misled him.

“I don’t want Republicans having a bum representing Republicans, and I don’t want to have a guy that committed crimes walking free,” he said.

The SEC has not indicated publicly that it is looking into Santos and declined to answer questions about potential inquiries into the congressman or communications between Intrater and the agency. But the SEC reached out to Intrater in March 2022 to seek information on Santos’ dealings on behalf of Harbor City, according to Intrater and his lawyer.

Although Santos claimed to have raised $100 million for Harbor City, SEC documents say the firm had only raised a total of $17 million. And while Santos said that he and his family had invested millions of dollars because of Harbor City, financial disclosures filed during his 2020 run for Congress show that he earned just $55,000 that year, and had no assets.

If Santos had lured investors through the use of false statements, he could face charges of securities fraud, legal experts said.

It is not clear how the SEC is handling Intrater’s sworn declaration; it does not appear to have been filed in court. The SEC lawsuit against Harbor City and its chief executive, J.P. Maroney, was put on hold in October 2022 at the request of Maroney because of a related criminal investigation into him, court documents show. Maroney has denied wrongdoing.

Some of Santos’ interactions with Intrater have been outlined in news accounts, including in Mother Jones, The Daily Beast and The Washington Post.

But documents, as well as interviews and text messages reviewed by the Times, offer new evidence of the lengths Santos went to in an effort to obscure the problems at Harbor City, and how the relationship soured between the politician and one of his biggest supporters.

Intrater is a private equity investor perhaps best known for his financial ties to Viktor Vekselberg, his cousin. Vekselberg is a Russian oligarch whose U.S. assets were frozen in 2018 by the Treasury Department because of his ties to the Kremlin.

Under a license from the Treasury Department, Intrater says, he has continued to manage Vekselberg-connected assets but is in the process of winding them down. He says that he has not distributed or received funds or had business dealings with Vekselberg or related companies since the sanctions.

Intrater is also known for his relationship with Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s onetime personal lawyer; Intrater’s firm, Columbus Nova, signed Cohen to a $1 million consulting contract when the businessman was looking for new investment opportunities in 2018.

Santos met Intrater a few years later; Intrater recalled that Santos called him seeking his financial support in the 2020 congressional race. After Santos lost, the two remained friendly, building a relationship over text messages and lunches at Osteria Delbianco, an Italian restaurant in midtown Manhattan. They bonded over a shared “old school” worldview and having families that fled the Holocaust, Intrater said. (Santos’ family did not actually flee the Holocaust, records show.)

Santos, as The Daily Beast reported, joined Harbor City in 2020, the same year he first ran for the House, and helped establish the firm’s presence in New York as its regional director. Santos had met Maroney, Harbor City’s CEO, when Santos was helping to organize conferences for LinkBridge Investors, Maroney said, and the two stayed in touch.

Maroney liked Santos, whom he described as “a consummate networker.” He hired him to bring in investments from the ultrawealthy.

According to court documents filed by the SEC, Harbor City told investors that it had discovered a way to make guaranteed money by investing in digital marketing and advertising.

But Harbor City was not doing any such investing, and only a small part of the $17 million it raised was used for legitimate business expenses, the government claims. The company, according to civil charges filed by the SEC, was instead engaged in a Ponzi scheme, using investments from new clients to make payments to older investors, while Maroney siphoned money from business accounts to buy a Mercedes and a waterfront house and pay down more than $1 million in credit card bills.

Intrater was a lucrative client. He decided to invest the $625,000 in a Harbor City fund, using a holding company, FEA Innovations. He and Maroney signed a subscription agreement, which was reviewed by the Times, on Jan. 15, 2021.

Intrater became one of Santos’ more generous patrons. In addition to his investments in Harbor City funds, first reported by The Washington Post, he donated more than $200,000 to Santos’ election campaign, associated political committees and a New York political action committee that he would later learn was controlled by Santos’ sister. He liked the political stances of Santos, a Republican, and his rags-to-riches story, he said.

In retrospect, he should have recognized warning signs, he said.

Though Intrater and his lawyers repeatedly requested the letter of credit, it never materialized. And while he received the first interest payment as scheduled in March 2021, the April payment was mysteriously clawed back. He did not receive any future payments from the company, he said.

With the April payment and the bank letter still missing, Intrater followed up with Santos on May 28, 2021. Intrater said he was unaware at the time that the SEC had by then made public its fraud complaint against Maroney and Harbor City.

But all was well, Santos assured Intrater, casually mentioning that he had been let go a few weeks earlier. Santos, who was running for Congress a second time, told Intrater that his political activities were deemed to be a conflict for Harbor City and he was leaving to focus on his real estate and small projects. (Santos has since admitted that he does not own any property.)

Maroney said in an interview that he had no problems with Santos’ political career and that he supported his ambitions, even agreeing to hold a fundraiser for Trump’s reelection bid at his home.

In fact, Maroney and another former Harbor City employee said Santos had been with the firm until the end. Maroney recalled in an interview last month that Santos “was definitely one of the ones that got the notice that everything we had had been frozen.”

Yet months after Harbor City’s accounts were frozen in April, Santos was still telling Intrater that things were fine, maintaining that the $100 million fund he had mentioned was separate from the one described in the SEC case, according to text messages he sent Intrater.

“Hey Andy, I put in calls to everyone I know still working at HC,” he wrote Intrater. “Should hear back today I hope.”

A few days later, Santos was fretting about his own financial exposure, which he had told Intrater was huge. “I’m having a nervous breakdown,” he texted.

As late as January 2022 he swore to Intrater that his family had invested “almost 4M,” and said that he had employed a lawyer, Joe Murray, to help him try to claw back any remaining funds.

The court-appointed lawyer overseeing Harbor City’s assets, Katherine Donlon, would not formally say whether Santos and his family had invested in Harbor City. But she said that she did not recognize their names as investors, in response to a request emailed by the Times.

Murray declined to answer questions from the Times about Santos’ representations to Intrater and on behalf of Harbor City, saying only, “It would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation.” Santos, who was not named in the SEC suit, has publicly said he had no knowledge of wrongdoing at Harbor City, an assertion that Maroney backed up.

Intrater said that at the time, he felt for the younger man, who he believed was also a victim.

“Take long walks to clear your head in order to deal with the stress,” he coached Santos via text, urging him to avoid stress eating and alcohol.

The two stayed in touch, even as Intrater came to write off his investment. When Santos appealed to him again for political donations in his second run for Congress, Intrater came through, donating tens of thousands of dollars to Santos’ associated PACs.

And he remained receptive to business opportunities presented by Santos, who helped to set up at least two other potential deals. Neither came together.

Neither Intrater nor his lawyer have heard much from the SEC since filing the declaration, they said, with the commission only replying in November 2022 to say that the civil case had been stayed.

By then, Santos had been elected to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District. A few days later, Intrater had lunch with the congressman-elect and offered his congratulations.

Things changed in December after Santos’ deception became public. In the weeks since, Intrater said he has reached out to the Department of Justice offering information on Santos. The agency declined to comment.

The last time the men spoke, Intrater says, was after he saw Santos being grilled on Fox News, about a week after the Times ran its initial investigation.

“I said, ‘Dude, I saw your interview,’” Intrater said. “‘You look like you’re absolutely lying about everything.’”

Once again, Santos sought to reassure him. But Intrater was no longer interested in explanations.

He told Santos that he was convinced he was a liar and then cursed at him, he said. “I hung up the phone,” he added. “That was it.”

A Republican elections commissioner said he was proud of lower turnout in Milwaukee. Democratic colleagues are calling for his resignation.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A Republican elections commissioner said he was proud of lower turnout in Milwaukee. Democratic colleagues are calling for his resignation.

Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – January 12, 2023

MADISON – A Democratic member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission is calling on his Republican colleague to resign for praising lower voter turnout in Milwaukee during the 2022 general election that he attributed to targeting Black voters with negative ads, lawsuits filed by Republicans that added voting restrictions, and GOP campaigning that pushed Democratic voters to stay home instead of voting for candidates in their party.

Bob Spindell, the chairman of the Fourth Congressional District GOP and a member of the elections commission, told Republicans in a recent email the district party was proud of lower turnout in Milwaukee “due to a ‘well thought out multi-faceted plan'” that included “A substantial & very effective Republican Coordinated Election Integrity program resulting with lots of Republican paid Election Judges & trained Observers & extremely significant continued Court Litigation,” according to UrbanMilwaukee, which was the first to report on Spindell’s comments.

Democratic commissioner Mark Thomsen said Spindell should leave his position overseeing elections.

“My fellow commissioner Bob Spindell has shown he cannot be fair and should resign from the WEC,” Thomsen tweeted, citing the UrbanMilwaukee report. Thomsen did not respond to a request for an interview.

Bob Spindell, a Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

“I would suspect that he didn’t read my article,” Spindell told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in response to Thomsen’s tweet.

Democratic commissioner Ann Jacobs also called for Spindell to resign, tweeting, “When you brag about suppressing votes, you are admitting you suppressed votes. Nothing in his claims says ‘our message won’ or ‘people came to our side.’ It is literally ‘We made them not vote – hooray!’ Mark Thomsen is absolutely correct. This is beyond the pale.”

Spindell said by touting lower voter turnout he was praising efforts by Republicans to make inroads with lifelong Democrats. He said Thomsen’s comments were ignoring the fact that commissioners are supposed to be partisan.

“The elections commission was not set up to be fair,” Spindell said. “The oath of office that we take does not say anything about not being nonpartisan. We were appointed by Republican and Democratic officials to be partisan and there is nobody more partisan than Ann Jacobs and Mark Thomsen and that is meant to be a compliment.”

“Three partisan Democrats and three partisan Republicans try to get together and come out with (guidance) that is in the best interest of Wisconsin and at the same time recognizing the interests of the (political parties) must be protected.”

In a five-page memo touting the party’s 2022 campaign strategies, Spindell wrote that the party is “especially proud of how the City of Milwaukee’s gross vote went down from 74% to 63% of registered voters — 37,000 total votes less than cast in 2018.”

“We must remember, in the strategy of things, it is often extremely difficult & hard to convert a hard core, long term generation type Democrat to all of a sudden, bring himself or herself around to vote for a Republican. However, by our Republican efforts, pointing out strongly, how the Democrat Candidates are worse than or certainly no better than their perception of the Republican Candidates, at all levels, they hopefully cannot bring themselves to vote for either one,” Spindell wrote.

“In a Democrat City or Democrat County where up to 80% of the people are voting for the Democrats – that’s a good thing and helped insure that Sen. Johnson got over the goal line.”

In the memo, Spindell claimed Democratic candidates did not receive “the votes they needed” from Black voters because of Republican campaigning targeting Black communities. He touted smaller voter turnout in Milwaukee aldermanic districts with high percentages of Black residents.

“While a great deal of credit goes to the RNC/RPW/Johnson paid staff and our many dedicated volunteers; our recruitment of good candidates & their hard work for these areas; continued presence on a Black Talk Radio Show coupled with Negative Black Radio Commercials, there is still a great deal of much more concentrated work we need to do in the Black and Hispanic Communities by continuing to show how the Democratic Elected Officials and Candidates are not watching out for the livelihoods of the people who live in these areas and the Republicans can,” he wrote.

By ballots cast, the Journal Sentinel reported, Milwaukee had the biggest proportional decline of any municipality in the county, but that may have been driven partly by population decline. Some 17% fewer ballots were cast in the city than in 2018, a drop off bigger than other communities in the county.

However, by another measure, percentage of registered voters, the decline in turnout in the city was in line with other Milwaukee County communities. Overall, Milwaukee County saw about 46,000 fewer ballots cast.

Spindell is one of the 10 Wisconsin Republicans who in 2020 submitted false paperwork to Congress and the National Archives claiming to be an elector for former President Donald Trump despite Trump losing the election, and has falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” but legal.

Spindell has been sued by two of Wisconsin’s real presidential electors over his decision to submit false paperwork to Congress claiming to be a presidential elector for Trump. Spindell and other false electors have defended their actions, calling it a legal strategy in the event the election results were overturned by a lawsuit.

Rep. Andy Biggs spews Kari Lake-like delusion from Washington, D.C.

AZ Central – The Arizona Republic

Rep. Andy Biggs spews Kari Lake-like delusion from Washington, D.C.

EJ Montini, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023

Rep. Andy Biggs delivers remarks in the House Chamber during the third day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC.

Based on her ongoing unhinged behavior there is no doubt Arizona dodged a bullet when Republican Kari Lake lost the governor’s race.

Knowing the state won’t have a person in a position of power who is motivated by a bizarre, single-minded sense of revenge based on moronic or (even worse) mindful delusions affords us a sense of relief.

That is … until we recognize that the spinning barrel of Arizona politics has more than one round in the chamber.

The first Lake-like politician to come out blasting after the election, bent on destruction and with little or no grasp of reality is U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs.

Beginning by burning down the House

First, Biggs tried to metaphorically burn down the House of Representatives by putting himself up for speaker, making his own party look like a bunch of buffoons during days of ridiculous recriminations and deal-making, only to have the guy Biggs said was unfit to be speaker, Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy, wind up as …speaker.Then, on Tuesday, Biggs tweeted:

Last night, my Republican colleagues and I defeated the Democrats’ 87,000-person IRS army. We are working quickly to reverse the Democrats’ negligent policies. This is already a very good start to the 118th Congress!

Essentially, none of that is true.

Biggs and his Republican colleagues “defeated” nothing. To claim they did is not even wishful thinking. It’s close to hallucination. And Biggs knows it.

Last year, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included roughly $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service to be spent over 10 years. But, as numerous fact checkers have pointed out numerous times during the election cycle, claims of an IRS “army” going after middle class families are fiction.

The IRS, which had been underfunded by Congress for years, plans to use the money to update its technology systems, to hire and train new technology specialists and customer service representatives, to replace some of the tens of thousands of retiring agents and to hire some news ones.

No ‘army’ and nothing was ‘defeated’

The “army” claim comes from the fact that agents within the IRS’s Criminal Investigation division can carry firearms. In context, there are roughly 82,000 IRS employees. About 2,000 of them are CI agents. And they don’t go after regular folks.

Biggs’ claim that he and the new Republican-controlled house “defeated” the original bill is a fantasy. It’s shocking – or is it? – to think that he and his Republican colleagues believe their supporters are stupid enough to believe that.

The Inflation Reduction Act is law.

The new Republican-controlled House passed legislation to eliminate the IRS funding in that bill, but the House proposal must first get through the Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden.

Neither of those things will happen.

Biggs knows this.

That is reality.

You are equipped with body armor. Use it.

Biggs also knows that fashioning such legislation then pushing it through the House was a colossal waste of time, all designed to send a false message filled with false bravado to gullible constituents who, in turn, might be conned into sending money back to the campaigns of the politicians who, in essence, did nothing.

We have plenty of other elected officials like Biggs – Rep. Paul Gosar, most of the GOP state legislative caucus and more – all with an unlimited supply of conspiracies and misleading information.

Don’t duck for cover, however.

Don’t run from the oncoming barrage.

There is widely available, impenetrable body armor at your disposable: Truth.

Here’s why the House GOP made defunding the IRS its first priority

Yahoo! Finance

Here’s why the House GOP made defunding the IRS its first priority

Ben Werschkul, Washington Correspondent – January 10, 2023

The House GOP’s first policy bill out of the gate didn’t address inflation or gas prices or immigration, but instead went after the Internal Revenue Service.

The bill was passed Monday evening on a straight party line vote of 221 to 210 to reverse much of the $80 billion in extra funding set aside for the agency by 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act.

While it has little chance of it being enacted anytime soon with Democrats in control of the Senate and President Biden promising a veto, the prominence of the issue shows just how much the IRS has become a heated target of Republicans. That’s despite experts saying the funds in question would go toward prosaic concerns like helping the agency chase down tax cheats and refresh its outdated technology.

The enhanced funding for the IRS is “part of the broad Biden administration strategy to tax and audit exponentially more Americans,” said Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) as debate got underway on Monday. He added that the bill would “stops autopilot funding for an out-of-control government agency that is perhaps most in need of reform.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy then announced the final results of the vote once it had passed, noting that it had been a GOP promise.

Washington , D.C. - January 6: Newly-elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) points to a newly installed sign above his office after he was elected in 15 rounds of votes in a meeting of the 118th Congress, Friday, January 6, 2023, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC. The House reconvened Friday night after adjourning earlier for a fourth day of voting after Rep.-elect Kevin McCarthy failed to earn more than 218 votes on 11 ballots over three days. (Photo by Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post via Getty Images) — Newly-elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy finally won the gavel early on Saturday morning after a protracted fight. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

‘Absolutely false’ viral claims

The claim from countless Republicans, from Speaker McCarthy on down, is that the influx of money will lead to a flood of 87,000 new IRS agents who will then turn and harass everyday Americans. Some critics of the agency go even further and claim these new agents will be armed.

But fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked the claims, and the agency itself pushed back in a Yahoo Finance op-ed from then-IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in August.

The viral claims are “absolutely false,” Rettig wrote at the time, adding his agency “is often perceived as an easy target for mischaracterizations,” but he promised the new money will not lead to increased audit scrutiny on households making under $400,000.

The plan is instead for much of the money to go toward wealthy tax cheats. IRS estimates of the so-called “tax gap” — the difference between what taxes are owed to the government and what is actually paid — is hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Much of the $80 billion will be focused on taking a bite out of the gap, focusing on wealthy tax payers. The investment is projected to pay for itself and then bring in over $100 billion in increased tax revenue over the coming decade.

By contrast, a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office released Monday afternoon found that the net effect of the House GOP bill’s to defund the agency would increase the deficit by more than $114.3 billion over the coming decade if enacted.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10776702/embed?auto=1

With the new funding, the IRS could hire an estimated 86,852 new employees, according to a May 2021 report by the Department of Treasury, but many of those would not be agents. Many would work in other areas like information technology.

And nearly all new agents would be unarmed. Very few IRS agents carry weapons as part of their responsibilities. Some of the hires may also be used to replace thousands of existing IRS workers expected to retire in the coming years.

Nonetheless, claims of a flood of new agents have persisted, repeated by figures ranging from the GOP chairwoman to Elon Musk.

The chronically understaffed IRS has until recently been a bipartisan concern, but the increased funding became an issue during the 2022 campaign and played into conservative suspicions of the agency that have been growing for years.

Conservatives have long claimed the IRS targeted the tax-exempt status of political groups during the Obama administration, while a 2017 Treasury report on the controversy found that groups on both sides of the political spectrum had faced scrutiny.

‘The average American cares about defunding 87,000 IRS agents’

This week’s vote comes just as Danny Werfel is set to return this year as IRS Commissioner, leading the agency’s revamp.

The newly elected chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith (R-MO), said in a statement Monday that Werfel “should plan to spend a lot of time before our committee answering questions about the leaking of sensitive taxpayer information and an agency with a history of targeting conservative Americans.”

In a recent Fox News appearance, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) additionally argued that “the average American cares about defunding 87,000 IRS agents.”

A sign outside the Internal Revenue Service is seen August 8, 2015 in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO / KAREN BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP via Getty Images) — An Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, DC. (KAREN BLEIER/AFP via Getty Images)

On the other side, Democrats repeatedly attacked Republicans for holding a vote on the bill and also for making it their first priority, implying they will use it against Republicans in the coming years.

In a statement calling the move a giveaway to rich tax cheats, Vice President Kamala Harris said House Republicans were trying to undo recent progress under Democrats and hoping to allow “millionaires, billionaires, and corporations to cheat the system.”

This post has been updated.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

1st bill out of new GOP-majority House would cut $71 billion from IRS, cost $114 billion

The Week

1st bill out of new GOP-majority House would cut $71 billion from IRS, cost $114 billion

Peter Weber, Senior editor – January 9, 2023

Kevin McCarthy Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

House Republicans passed their first bill of the 118th Congress on Monday night, voting along party lines to cut $71 billion from the IRS. The legislation will not be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Biden said Monday he would veto the cuts if they somehow arrived at his desk. Before the vote, the Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would increase the federal deficit by $114 billion over the next 10 years.

Democrats approved $80 million in IRS funding in the Inflation Reduction Act last year. The IRS says the money will be used to hire 87,000 new employees over the next 10 years, upgrade the agency’s antiquated technology, and beef up enforcement of tax laws on taxpayers earning more than $400,000 a year. Many of the 87,000 new IRS workers will be in customer service, to answer taxpayer questions, the Biden administration says, and others would replace the 50,0000 IRS agents expected to quit or retire in the coming years.

House Republicans promised to prioritize cutting those funds, arguing they will be used to harass middle class taxpayers and “create a ‘shadow army’ to shake down small businesses with assault rifles,” The New York Times reports. “Our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Saturday morning, shortly after being elected speaker on the 15th ballot. “You see, we believe government should be to help you, not go after you.”

Former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, a Republican appointed by former President Donald Trump, said last November that the new investments in his understaffed agency would make it “even less likely for honest taxpayers to hear from the IRS or receive an audit letter.” Treasury Department spokeswoman Ashley Schapitl said Monday that “the IRS audits nearly 80 percent fewer millionaires than a decade ago,” and the House bill “would deny the agency much-needed resources to hire top talent to go after the $163 billion in taxes avoided by the top 1 percent annually.”

“The only way that House Republicans could make it any more obvious that they’re doing a favor for wealthy tax cheats is by coming out and saying it in exactly those words,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “This bill is going nowhere in the Senate.”

Crazies taking over the asylum: Ginni Thomas Leaps Into House Speaker Battle Against Kevin McCarthy

HuffPost

Ginni Thomas Leaps Into House Speaker Battle Against Kevin McCarthy

Mary Papenfuss – January 5, 2023

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, has jumped squarely into the battle against Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the House.

The in-your-face activism comes in the wake of stinging criticism of Thomas’ high-profile support of extremist right-wing politics even as her husband continues to rule in support of some of the same issues, raising serious conflict-of-interest concerns.

“Conservative organizations and the millions of grassroots conservatives … are united in our support of the 20 courageous members of Congress seeking to change the status quo in Washington,” said an open letter published Wednesday by the Conservative Action Project organization and signed by Thomas and about 70 other right-wing activists and organization officials.

“We stand behind them and beside them in their courageous efforts to find a Speaker of the House who will represent the interests of conservatives,” the letter added.

Most of the 20 “courageous” lawmakers, as they’re referred to in the letter, who have voted against McCarthy in his repeated bids to become speaker had denied the results of the 2020 presidential election, despite no evidence of their claims of widespread voter fraud.

Thomas backed the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists, even though she testified to members of the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot that she had no evidence of election fraud.

Text messages previously released by the committee revealed how Ginni Thomas relentlessly pushed Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to do what he could to subvert the 2020 election results and keep Trump in power.

Thomas was joined in signing the letter by Cleta Mitchell, the controversial attorney who was on the phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffesnperger after the 2020 election when the then-president demanded that Raffensperger “find” just enough votes to change his loss to Joe Biden into a victory. That phone call is now at the center of a Georgia grand jury investigation.

Mitchell plotted with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council to challenge the election in the event Trump lost months before a single vote was cast. Lisa Nelson, the CEO of ALEC, announced to members in early 2020 that the organization had been working with Mitchell on “action items that legislators can take to question the validity” of the election, according to a recording obtained by the watchdog group Documented.

Thomas has been the target of stinging criticism for her role in extremist right-wing politics even as her husband rules on issues dear to her heart.

Supreme Court justices were divided over 2020 election issues but ultimately refused to accept Trump’s claims of election rigging. Clarence Thomas, however, stood out for emphasizing ballot fraud in sympathy with those who, like his wife, refused to accept the results.

He has also stood apart when other justices refused to block the work of the Jan. 6 committee, even while his wife was affected by the decision. Federal law requires all federal judges to recuse themselves from cases in which they cannot be impartial.

Norman Orenstein, emeritus scholar of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has called it a massive “scandal” that Clarence Thomas continues to rule on issues his “radical insurrectionist” wife is involved in.

“The wife of a Supreme Court justice is a radical insurrectionist. Her husband has refused to recuse himself from any of the cases in which she has been deeply and actively involved. This is a scandal of immense proportions.”

As for McCarthy, the House adjourned until Friday after he lost an 11th vote to become speaker.

Related…

Capitol riot investigation growing 2 years later

Associated Press

EXPLAINER: Capitol riot investigation growing 2 years later

Michael Kunzelman – January 5, 2023

FILE - Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File) — Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

FILE - Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) — Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

FILE - U.S. Capitol Police hold rioters at gun-point near the House Chamber inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) — U.S. Capitol Police hold rioters at gun-point near the House Chamber inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

FILE - Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) — U.S. Capitol Police hold rioters at gun-point near the House Chamber inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

FILE - Police with guns drawn watch as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) — Police with guns drawn watch as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - People shelter in the House gallery as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) — People shelter in the House gallery as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

The largest investigation in the Justice Department’s history keeps growing two years after a violent mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol and challenged the foundations of American democracy.

More than 930 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the siege on Jan. 6, 2021, and the tally increases by the week. Hundreds more people remain at large on the second anniversary of the unprecedented assault that was fueled by lies that the 2020 election was stolen.

A surplus of self-incriminating videos and social media posts has made it difficult for riot suspects to present viable defenses. Federal prosecutors have a near-perfect trial record, securing a conviction in all but one case.

The cases have clogged Washington’s federal court, a building less than a mile from the Capitol. Virtually every weekday, judges are sentencing rioters or accepting their guilty pleas while carving out room on their dockets for trials. Already scheduled for this year are trials for about 140 riot defendants.

At least 538 cases, more than half of those brought so far, have been resolved through guilty pleas, trials, dismissals or the defendant’s death, according to an Associated Press review of court records. That leaves approximately 400 unresolved cases at the outset of 2023.

While a House committee has wrapped up its investigation of the riot, the Justice Department’s work appears to be far from done. A special counsel is overseeing two federal investigations involving Trump: one into the retention of classified documents at the former president’s Florida estate and a second into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The Jan. 6 attack as an “assault on our democracy,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

“And we remain committed to doing everything in our power to prevent this from ever happening again,” he said in a statement Wednesday.

A look at where the prosecutions stand:

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN CHARGED?

The number of defendants charged with Jan. 6-related federal crimes is approaching 1,000. They range from misdemeanor charges against people who entered the Capitol but did not engage in any violence to seditious conspiracy charges against members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremist groups accused of violently plotting to stop the transfer of presidential power.

More than 100 police officers were injured at the Capitol. More than 280 defendants have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers on Jan. 6, according to the Justice Department. The FBI is posting videos and photos of violent, destructive rioters in seeking the public’s help in identifying other culprits.

Investigators have used facial recognition software, license plate readers and other high-tech tools to track down some suspects. Networks of online sleuths have helped the FBI identify rioters based on digital clues.

Among those still on the lam: the person who put two explosives outside the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees before the riot. The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Metropolitan Police Department are offering a $500,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Authorities have shared a staggering amount of evidence with defense lawyers — more than nine terabytes of information that would take over 100 days to view. The shared files include thousands of hours of surveillance footage from the Capitol and hundreds of hours of bodycam videos from police officers who tried to hold off the mob.

HOW MANY HAVE PLEADED GUILTY?

Nearly 500 people have pleaded guilty to riot-related charges, typically hoping that cooperating could lead to a lighter punishment.

About three-quarters of them pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in which the maximum sentence was either six months or one year behind bars. More than 100 of them have pleaded guilty to felony charges punishable by longer prison terms.

The first person to plead guilty to a Jan. 6-related crime was Jon Ryan Schaffer, an Indiana musician who joined the Oath Keepers. Schaffer was one of at least eight Oath Keepers who pleaded guilty before the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, and other members went to trial on seditious conspiracy charges.

The Justice Department also cut plea deals with several Proud Boys members, securing their cooperation to build a case against former national leader Enrique Tarrio and other top members of the group. A New York man, Matthew Greene, was the first Proud Boys member to plead guilty to conspiring with others to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote.

HOW MANY HAVE GONE TO TRIAL?

Dozens of riot defendants have elected to let juries or judges decide their fates. For the most part, they haven’t fared well at trial.

The Justice Department notched a high-stakes victory in November when a jury convicted Rhodes, the Oath Keepers’ founder, and a Florida chapter leader of seditious conspiracy. It was the first seditious conspiracy conviction at trial in decades. Jurors acquitted three other Oath Keepers associates of the Civil War-era charge, but convicted them of other felony offenses.

The next major milestone is the sedition trial of Tarrio and four other members of the Proud Boys. Jury selection in the trial of the far-right extremist group started last month.

In other cases, an Ohio man who stole a coat rack from the Capitol testified that he was acting on orders from Trump when he stormed the Capitol. A New Jersey man described by prosecutors as a Nazi sympathizer claimed he didn’t know that Congress met at the Capitol. A retired New York Police Department officer testified that he was defending himself when he tackled a police officer and grabbed his gas mask outside the Capitol.

Those defenses fell flat. Jurors unanimously convicted all three men of every charge in their respective indictments.

Federal juries have convicted at least 22 people of Jan. 6 charges. Judges have convicted an additional 24 riot defendants after hearing and deciding cases without a jury.

Only one person, New Mexico resident Matthew Martin, has been acquitted of all charges after a trial. After hearing testimony without a jury, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden concluded that it was reasonable for Martin to believe that outnumbered police officers allowed him and others to enter the Capitol through the Rotunda doors on Jan. 6.

HOW MANY HAVE BEEN SENTENCED?

At least 362 riot defendants were sentenced by the end of 2022. Roughly 200 of them have received terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years. Prosecutors had recommended a jail or prison sentence in approximately 300 of those 362 cases.

Retired New York Police Department Officer Thomas Webster has received the longest prison sentence. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who sentenced Webster to a decade in prison, also presided over the first Oath Keepers sedition trial and will sentence Rhodes and Rhodes’ convicted associates.

Webster is one of 34 riot defendants who has received a prison sentence of at least three years. More than half of them, including Webster, assaulted police officers at the Capitol.

The riot resulted in more than $2.7 million in damage. So far, judges have ordered roughly 350 convicted rioters to collectively pay nearly $280,00 in restitution. More than 100 rioters have been ordered to pay over $241,000 in total fines.

Judges also have ordered dozens of rioters to serve terms of home detention ranging from two weeks to one year — usually instead of jail time — and to collectively perform more than 14,000 hours of community service.

Incoming Iowa attorney general Brenna Bird tells 19 staffers to resign

The Des Moines Register

Incoming Iowa attorney general Brenna Bird tells 19 staffers to resign

Jared Strong/Capital Dispatch – January 3, 2023

The incoming, newly elected Iowa attorney general has asked for the resignations of 19 current staffers, including many in leadership positions but also some longtime staff attorneys, according to Lynn Hicks, a spokesperson for the office who was among those asked to resign.

Brenna Bird, a Republican county attorney who defeated longtime Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat, in the November election, requested the resignations on Dec. 22, according to letters obtained by Iowa Capital Dispatch.

“We appreciate your past service to the State of Iowa,” wrote Sam Langholz, whom Bird has selected as her chief deputy when she takes control of the office next week. “But the people of Iowa have elected a new attorney general. To best serve them — and to do the things she told Iowans she would do — the Attorney General-Elect is realigning the office and building a new team that matches her vision for the office.”

Bird pledged during her election campaign to more vigorously defend laws enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature and to challenge policies enacted by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Langholz, former senior counsel for Gov. Kim Reynolds, has worked for the attorney general’s office for about two years and has helped defend against challenges to the governor’s policies and administrative actions.

His letter to 19 of his colleagues asked that their resignations be effective at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 3, at the latest.

“We are timing this transition date and time so that you will receive holiday pay on January 2, regular pay for 30 minutes on January 3, and your normal health insurance coverage for the month of January,” Langholz wrote.

He said the notices of resignation were due on Dec. 28 — six days after the letters were sent.

Hicks, who is Miller’s chief of staff, is among at least 10 who have acquiesced to the requests or had already planned to resign, according to copies of the resignation letters and other information he provided to Capital Dispatch with the consent of the employees. He identified a total of 13 of those asked to resign.

The 19 employees represent less than 10% of the total staff, which has about 150 assistant attorneys general and more than 200 people total, according to state salary records.

Replacing top staffers is common when someone new is elected to a statewide executive position, especially when they are tied to a different political party. However, the letters also targeted attorneys more closely involved in litigating cases, several of whom have been with the office for more than two decades.

“It has been my great honor serving the people of the state of Iowa — particularly the most vulnerable amongst us including older Iowans, veterans, and other at-risk individuals — and am disappointed that I was asked to resign,” wrote Chantelle Smith, an assistant attorney general whose focus is elder abuse and who has been employed by the office since about 2000, according to state records.

Hicks said others who were asked to resign include:

Nathan Blake, the chief deputy attorney general.
Jessica Whitney, the deputy attorney general for public protection and the director of the office’s Consumer Protection Division.
Matt Gannon, the first assistant attorney general, who wrote in his resignation letter: “I wish you success. I have my doubts.”
Chandlor Collins, director of the Human Services Division.
Emily Willits, director of the Licensing and Administrative Law Division.
Sandi Tibbetts Murphy, director of the Crime Victim Assistance Division who wrote in her resignation letter: “It has been a singular honor to serve the people of Iowa, and specifically victims of crime, as part of this Division and I hope that its groundbreaking and pivotal work continues unabated.” Bird has said she might overhaul the division, given her experience prosecuting crimes and interacting with victims of those crimes.
Heather Adams, an assistant attorney general who specializes in licensing and administrative law and public health who had worked for the office since 1994. She told Capital Dispatch: “I do not know why I was asked to resign. I, too, was deeply disappointed to be asked to submit my resignation. I have faithfully served the office, the public, and my public health clients for nearly 30 years — in a nonpartisan manner.”
Mari Culver, an assistant attorney general who specializes in consumer protection. She is the spouse of former Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat.
Ashlee Kieler, a communications specialist who had already submitted her resignation.
Ellen Ramsey-Kacena, an assistant attorney general who specializes in human services and family law.
Donn Stanley, an assistant attorney general who specializes in consumer protection. Stanley has worked for the office for about two decades and previously held leadership roles. He also took a leave of absence from the office to be campaign manager for Gov. Culver in 2010.
Sharon Wegner, an assistant attorney general in the Special Litigation Division.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, who took office Tuesday.

Langholz noted that Miller also installed his “own team” to lead the office after he was first elected in 1978, based on media accounts at the time, and that the number of requested resignations are less than 8% of the total staff. They are at-will employees and “can be terminated at any time and for any lawful reason,” Langholz said.

“To implement her vision for the office, the Attorney General-elect will build a new team that shares her goals and values,” according to a prepared statement Langholz provided. “The Attorney General-elect appreciates the service to Iowa from the individuals leaving the office.”

Jared Kushner blocked Biden’s access to COVID-19 planning in the final days of the Trump era, former aide says

Insider

Jared Kushner blocked Biden’s access to COVID-19 planning in the final days of the Trump era, former aide says

Joshua Zitser – December 30, 2022

Jared Kushner denied Biden’s team access to COVID-19 plans in late 2020, a former aide said.
Kushner said Biden’s team should “absolutely not” be looped in, claimed Alyssa Farah Griffin.
She made the claim in a newly released transcript of her interview with the Jan. 6 House panel.

Jared Kushner ordered that the incoming Biden administration be excluded from COVID-19 planning in the aftermath of the 2020 election, a former aide said.

Alyssa Farah Griffin made the claim in an interview with the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot, according to a newly released transcript.

Farah Griffin told the panel that Kushner shot down the a suggestion to include President Joe Biden’s transition team in planning discussions after the election had been called for Biden, per the transcript.

At the time, Trump was angrily refusing to concede defeat, and hyping his baseless theory that the election had been stolen. Though he left office in January 2021, he continues to claim he won the 2020 vote.

In the transcript, Farah Griffin described former COVID Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx asking whether they should be “looping” the incoming Biden transition in.

“Jared just said, ‘Absolutely not,'” Farah Griffin told the panel. “And then we just moved on.”

Farah Griffin’s allegation, which was first reported by The Independent, is the first to directly put blame for the stonewalling on Kushner.

Biden officials complained at the time that the Trump administration was refusing them access to COVID-19 data in the weeks after the election.

Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told “Fox News Sunday” on November 15, 2020, that the Trump administration had stonewalled crucial COVID-19 data and plans.

Biden also said that week that Trump officials were harming the US by denying them access, per The New York Times.

“If we have to wait until January 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind,” Biden told reporters, referring to the date of his inauguration. “More people may die if we don’t coordinate.”

In the same speech, Biden pressed the Trump administration to provide more details about the allocation of COVID-19 vaccinations. “The sooner we have access to the administration’s distribution plan, the sooner this transition would be smoothly moved forward,” Biden said, per Politico.

It comes from one of the dozens of witness transcripts released by the January 6 committee in the past week.

Kushner did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.