Politics

Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales, who represents the 23rd Congressional District of Texas, told Newsweek in an exclusive interview that he intends to seek one of the top positions within the House of Representatives' bipartisan veterans working group. The For Country Caucus, as the group is called, provides lawmakers with military service experience a forum to work across party lines in support of bipartisan policy solutions, specifically those pertaining to the U.S. national security and veterans' affairs. Gonzales, who served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and attained the rank of master chief petty officer, told Newsweek the position of caucus co-chair appeals to him because it attracts "natural problem solvers" dedicated to working across the aisle and getting legislation passed. "For Country Caucus to me has been one of the most effective caucuses as far as helping move legislation through the process," Gonzales told Newsweek . "I want to take on a leadership role … [Read more...] about Exclusive: Rep. Tony Gonzales seeks to co-chair bipartisan veteran caucus

The GOP took the House in the 2022 midterms , but even before Democrats have officially left the House majority, some members are already thinking about 2024 and how their party can win back control from Republicans. Eying the GOP’s slim majority—they won by just nine seats—some Democrats believe the House is prime territory for a flip. That sort of quick turnaround for House control would be a rarity. Democrats last held the House for four years, Republicans held it for eight before that. And yet, House progressives say that at least on their end, the inner workings of that goal are already underway. They’re hoping to be the key for it all—to mobilize voters en masse next election around Democrats’ left-most ideas and candidates. The work to do so starts now, they say. Of course, the minority isn’t where Democrats, including progressives, wanted to be after the 2022 cycle. But defying widespread forecasts of a red wave, the party has been meticulously … [Read more...] about Rep. Pramila Jayapal Wants to Grow Congressional Progressive Caucus and Move Dems Left

Pay Dirt is a weekly foray into the pigpen of political funding. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Thursday. As conservatives re-up their criticism of Twitter for supposedly interfering in the 2020 election with its two-day ban on an unverified story about Hunter Biden’s laptop , it’s worth noting that Republican federal election officials already cleared the company of that specific charge. Last Friday night, Twitter CEO Elon Musk released “the Twitter Files,” a behind-the-scenes account of the social media giant’s controversial decision in the run-up to the 2020 election to temporarily restrict circulation of the New York Post ’s unconfirmed report about the contents of a laptop hard drive supposedly belonging to Hunter Biden. The platform reversed its decision in two days . But in that time, Twitter—citing company policy of restricting the spread of “hacked materials”—blocked all sharing of the story, and locked the New York Post out of its account. … [Read more...] about GOP Officials Said Twitter’s Hunter Biden Ban Wasn’t Corrupt

WASHINGTON — When the Senate passed landmark legislation last month to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages, the vote was lauded as a rare moment of bipartisanship at a time of deep political polarization in the country. But the narrow coalition of 12 Republicans that joined every Democrat in support of the measure — which is poised to pass the House on Thursday and be signed by President Biden shortly thereafter — did not spring up spontaneously in a groundswell of cross-party harmony. Behind the scenes, a group of influential Republican donors and operatives, including some of the party’s most prominent gay leaders with long experience prodding their party to embrace L.G.B.T.Q. rights, banded together with the bill’s proponents in Congress for a coordinated, $1.7 million campaign to persuade G.O.P. senators that backing it would give them a political edge. Their quiet work helps explain how a bill to ensure recognition of same-sex marriages across the country went … [Read more...] about Prominent Gay Republicans Helped Smooth the Way for Marriage Bill

Follow our live coverage of the Supreme Court hearings that pits free speech against gay rights . WASHINGTON — The Senate passed landmark legislation on Tuesday to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages, as a lame-duck Congress mustered a notable moment of bipartisanship before Democrats were to lose their unified control of Capitol Hill. The 61-to-36 vote put the bill on track to become law in the final weeks before Republicans assume the majority in the House of Representatives at the start of the new Congress in January. It marked one of the final major legislative achievements for Democrats before Republicans shift the focus in the House to conducting investigations of President Biden’s administration and family members. The bill must now win final approval by the House in a vote expected as soon as next week, which would clear it for Mr. Biden, who said he looked forward to signing it alongside the bipartisan coalition that helped shepherd it through the … [Read more...] about Same-Sex Marriage Bill Passes Senate After Bipartisan Breakthrough

A member of Ukraine’s parliament who federal authorities said meddled in America’s 2020 presidential campaign on behalf of Russia’s intelligence services has been charged with money laundering tied to his purchase of two Beverly Hills apartments he used while sowing disinformation. The charges against the member of parliament, Andriy Derkach, 55, grew out of an investigation into whether he and other Ukrainians had interfered in the 2020 campaign — including by using Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, to spread misleading claims about President Biden, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That inquiry was first reported by The New York Times last year. In an indictment that was unsealed on Wednesday that also charged him with bank fraud conspiracy, sanctions violations and other crimes, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said Mr. Derkach decades ago was a combat crew commander in the Soviet Union’s Strategic Missile Command. When U.S. Treasury … [Read more...] about Ukrainian Accused of Election Interference Charged With Money Laundering

[What you need to know to start your day: Get New York Today in your inbox .] It could be said that two separate trials are taking place, side by side, these days in Room 8D of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn. At the actual trial, the United States government is prosecuting Joaquín Guzmán Loera, who is accused of being one of the world’s biggest drug dealers. Widely known as El Chapo, Mr. Guzmán, prosecutors say, earned as much as $14 billion as head of the Sinaloa drug cartel — a fortune he is said to have protected with rampant payoffs and an army of professional assassins. But at a second trial of sorts, Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers are, in essence, prosecuting the government of Mexico . By their account, the country’s police and politicians not only are corrupt, but also have conspired for years with Mr. Guzmán’s partner, Ismael Zambada García, to target El Chapo in exchange for a flood of bribes. Judge Brian M. Cogan has been tasked with keeping the first of … [Read more...] about The Public Trial of El Chapo, Held Partially in Secret

After yet another disappointing showing for Republicans in Georgia’s Senate runoff on Tuesday, some conservatives — like Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and Kevin McCarthy — have begun to point to a surprising culprit: a failure to take advantage of early voting. The theory seems to be that Republicans are losing because early voting is giving Democrats a turnout edge. It follows a similar conversation after the midterm elections, when a chorus of conservatives said Republicans needed to start encouraging mail voting. But as more data becomes available on turnout in this year’s election, it is quite clear that turnout was not the main problem facing Republicans. In state after state, the final turnout data shows that registered Republicans turned out at a higher rate — and in some places a much higher rate — than registered Democrats, including in many of the states where Republicans were dealt some of their most embarrassing losses. Instead, high-profile Republicans … [Read more...] about Turnout by Republicans Was Great. It’s Just That Many of Them Didn’t Vote for Republicans.

As Georgia Democrats won their third Senate runoff election in two years, the party proved it had crafted an effective strategy for triumphing in a decades-old system created to sustain segregationist power and for overcoming an array of efforts to making voting more difficult. Republicans, meanwhile, were quietly cursing the runoff system, or at least their strategy for winning under a state law they wrote after losing the last election. The various post-mortems over how Georgia’s runoff rules shaped the state’s Senate outcome on Tuesday put a spotlight on a major voting law passed by the Republican-led General Assembly last year. Some Republicans acknowledged that their efforts to limit in-person early voting days might have backfired, while others encouraged lawmakers to consider additional restrictions next year. With Georgia poised to remain a critical political battleground and with Republicans holding gerrymandered majorities in both chambers of its state legislature, … [Read more...] about Losing Another Runoff, Georgia Republicans Weigh an Election Shake-Up

The Biden administration took a public stand last year against the abuse of spyware to target human rights activists, dissidents and journalists: It blacklisted the most notorious maker of the hacking tools, the Israeli firm NSO Group. But the global industry for commercial spyware — which allows governments to invade mobile phones and vacuum up data — continues to boom. Even the U.S. government is using it. The Drug Enforcement Administration is secretly deploying spyware from a different Israeli firm, according to five people familiar with the agency’s operations, in the first confirmed use of commercial spyware by the federal government. At the same time, the use of spyware continues to proliferate around the world, with new firms — which employ former Israeli cyberintelligence veterans, some of whom worked for NSO — stepping in to fill the void left by the blacklisting. With this next generation of firms, technology that once was in the hands of a small number of nations is … [Read more...] about How the Global Spyware Industry Spiraled Out of Control