These two pro-impeachment Republicans are not going quietly

Eight of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Trump following the Capitol riot are leaving Congress, either after not seeking reelection or losing primaries this year.

At least two of those vocal Trump critics have made one thing clear: They aren’t going away anytime soon.

GOP Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) have both launched political action committees (PACs) supporting candidates for public office and hinted at other forms of involvement.

Cheney and Kinzinger were the two Republicans on the nine-member Jan. 6 select committee investigating the riot. Kinzinger announced in 2021 he wouldn’t seek reelection, while Cheney lost her August primary to a Trump-endorsed candidate.

“This primary election is over,” Cheney said at the time. “But now the real work begins.”

She transitioned her campaign committee into a leadership PAC, The Great Task, which ran an ad opposing Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem — both of whom lost in November.

Cheney also endorsed House Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Elissa Slotkin in their successful reelection bids in Virginia and Michigan respectively, as well as Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan, who lost.

Cheney told NBC News in August she was considering running for president in 2024. She said the following month, “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure [Donald Trump] is not the nominee. And if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican.”

Kinzinger’s Country First PAC supported Republican, Democratic and independent candidates this year, including several Democrats who won secretary of State races.  

Kinzinger wrote in an op-ed in The Hill after the midterms that the PAC is “dedicated to defeating the toxic tribalism tearing our families, friendships, and country apart. … This is not about policy or past grievances. It’s about the future of our democracy and making sure it survives.”

Talking to CNN commentator and former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod in September, Kinzinger said he thinks a long-term project to lower barriers for candidates outside the major parties to run for office would be beneficial. He said he could see progress on that front by 2028 or 2032.

Axelrod asked Kinzinger if he was planning to put his energy into such a project, and Kinzinger said, “I’m going to certainly be looking at it … I still would love to repair the Republican Party. I don’t think that’s in the cards in the near future. So yeah … is it going to be that, is it going to be just teaching people to have uneasy coalitions in the center-right and center-left? Whatever that is, something’s got to give.”

Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, only Reps. David Valadao (Calif.) and Dan Newhouse (Wash.) will return to the House in 2023. Among the others, four retired and four lost primaries. 

This is NotedDC, a newsletter looking at the politics, policy and people behind the stories in Washington. We’re Amée LaTour and Liz Crisp. Sign up here or in the box below.

BRIEFLY

• Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) says he expects an omnibus package that includes the Electoral Count Act and funding for Ukraine.
  
• A Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report finds sexual abuse is prevalent in federal prisons.
  
• Paul Whelan’s family expresses hope for his release from Russian imprisonment and says it’s a priority for President Biden. 
  
  

🌍 Washington focuses on US-Africa relationship

Washington is turning its attention to various initiatives involving the continent of Africa as the administration welcomes 50 delegations for this week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.

President Biden has invited 49 African heads of state, plus the chair of the African Union Commission, to the three-day event, which runs through Thursday. It’s the first such summit since the Obama administration held the inaugural event in 2014.

WHO WAS INVITED: According to senior administration officials, four African nations were not invited this year — Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea and Sudan — because they’ve been suspended from the African Union over unconstitutional changes to the government. Additionally, the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with Eritrea, so the country also wasn’t invited. 

“There’s nothing more catalytic than an event like this — nothing that is more of a forcing function, nothing that is a better demonstration of our renewed engagement than three days of conversation and interaction,” one senior official told NotedDC and other reporters ahead of the summit.

EVENTS UNDERWAY: Ahead of Tuesday’s start of the summit, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce held its Innovators Gathering, a reception at the State Department that was attended by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) and actor and filmmaker Idris Elba, among others.

“It is fitting that we are kicking off a week focused on deepening our ties with African countries and people with this inspiring group — innovators, entrepreneurs, young people,” Blinken told the crowd. “[T]he United States and African nations can’t deliver on any of our fundamental needs and aspirations for our people, and we can’t solve any of the really big challenges we face, if we don’t work together.”

Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other leaders gathered Tuesday for the summit’s panel discussion on “Peace, Security and Governance Forum” to examine how security, stability and sustainable democracy will require partnerships between the U.S. and Africa.

“The solutions that are made just in the United States are not likely to be sustainable,” Blinken said. “We’re focused on listening to our partners.”

EXPECT HEAVY TRAFFIC: Widespread road closures and other traffic disruptions have started around the Walter E. Washington Convention Center amid this week’s summit.

At the request of Secret Service, Metro’s Mount Vernon Square station will be closed through Thursday. Green Line trains will pass through the station without stopping, with normal service to other stations on the line. 

Per WMATA, customers are encouraged to use the Gallery Place-Chinatown station or Shaw-Howard stations. In some cases, Metrobus may be an alternative, the agency noted. 

Businesses may be open in the secure perimeter, marked by an eight-foot fence erected over the weekend, but pedestrians could be required to undergo security sweeps and can only enter through designated access points.

OTHER DETAILS TO KNOW: 

• Bowser held a reception hosting the African delegations on Monday night.
• You can stream summit events online via the State Department here.
• Biden will give a keynote remarks at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, followed by a formal U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Dinner in the evening. 
• The Metropolitan Police Department, the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies are providing security for the high-level event. 
  
  

🚓 Bankman-Fried hit with US charges

Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday in the Bahamas, causing a major last-minute change to the testimony lineup for a congressional hearing into the collapse of his crypto exchange FTX, which a House panel held Tuesday.

As The Hill’s Tobias Burns reports: “Bankman-Fried was charged Tuesday by the Department of Justice (DOJ) with eight crimes including wire fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud, as well as conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws following the collapse of his crypto platform FTX in November.”

What the DOJ alleges: “The unsealed indictment signed by U.S. attorney Damian Williams and filed in the Southern District of New York alleges that Bankman-Fried used customer deposits at FTX to pay his own hedge fund, a privately held company called Alameda Research.” 

“The DOJ also alleges that Bankman-Fried violated federal election laws, saying in the indictment that he made contributions to candidates that were reported in the name of another person.” 

Separate complaint: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil complaint on similar charges Tuesday. Read more from Burns here.

What timing!: On Tuesday, the House Financial Services Committee heard testimony from current FTX CEO John Ray, who took over Nov. 11 and led the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

Forbes published a transcript of Bankman-Fried’s planned testimony. Find that here. 

Meanwhile, the Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday. Bankman-Fried had been subpoenaed to testify before that committee, but his lawyers didn’t accept the subpoena, our colleague Sylvan Lane wrote Monday before news of the arrest broke.  

The Senate Agriculture Committee held the first congressional hearing on FTX on Dec. 1, featuring testimony from Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Rostin Benha.

🏜 Sinema leaves questions hanging over 2024 race

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema‘s recent decision to leave the Democratic Party and declare herself an Independent is creating a fine balancing act for Democrats who want to stay in her good graces while she votes with her old caucus but also would like to see a reliable Democrat in the seat.

Sinema, who in 2018 became the first Democrat in three decades to win an Arizona Senate seat, has demurred when asked in recent interviews about whether she plans to seek reelection in 2024.

Under Arizona law, an Independent candidate must collect more than 43,000 voter signatures to get on the ballot.

Arizona Democrats and strategists who spoke to NotedDC indicated they are still trying to understand the best path forward, likely rallying around a single candidate.

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has acknowledged that he’s mulling a possible bid for the Democratic nomination and appears to be getting an early jump on the race. 

“I do expect Rep. Gallego will run and that he’ll face some competition, though he should be considered the frontrunner when he announces,” Arizona State University professor emeritus Richard Herrera told NotedDC.

It’s unclear what other candidates may also make a run for the seat. 

“I’ve not heard of any other prominent Democrats in AZ who’ve expressed interest in the nomination,” Herrera said.

An independent group dubbed Replace Sinema PAC (formerly Primary Sinema PAC) has taken an anyone-but-Sinema approach.

Sinema has been a controversial figure among Democrats even before dropping the party affiliation. A poll last year from the nonpartisan Phoenix-based OH Predictive Insights found 44 percent of Arizona Republican voters surveyed said they viewed her favorably, compared to just 42 percent of the state’s Democratic voters.

Still, many see it as a high-stakes gamble for Democrats to put up a candidate who could split votes with Sinema, parting the way for a GOP winner.

“I expect prominent Republicans will see this as more or less an open seat,” Herrera said.

Arizona Republicans are coming off a particularly disappointing 2022 election cycle in which far-right candidates aligned with former President Trump won their primaries only to be defeated by Democrats in the general election. 

“One big question is whether their primary voters will choose a candidate like [Blake] Masters, who may falter and lend a portion of the GOP vote to Sinema or a moderate who could win enough GOP votes to win a three-way race,” Herrera said. 

Read more from The Hill’s Alexander Bolton on how Sinema’s future is weighed on Capitol Hill. 

‘RISK TO RESILIENCE’

The Hill contributing editor Steve Clemons and Bipartisan Policy Center founder Jason Grumet moderated an event Tuesday with policymakers and industry leaders focused on cyber and climate efforts to make America’s power grid more resilient.

Excerpt: Puesh Kumar, director of the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, & Emergency Response with the U.S. Department of Energy, discussed what the department is doing to defend against cyber adversaries.

“There needs to be a lot of us working together on the defense side. … We need industry and government working more closely than ever before on cybersecurity,” Kumar said. “We want to bring together electric utilities, pipeline operators, and other energy companies working with us at the department, working with us on the intelligence side, and then working in partnership with our sister agencies at [the Department of Homeland Security.]” 

Watch The Hill’s Risk to Resilience: Cyber and Climate Solutions to Bolster America’s Power Grid event here.

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Inside Marjorie Taylor Greene’s unprecedented feud with gay Congressional staffer (via The Washington Blade)
• Criminal investigation preceded suicide of high-powered GOP insider in Florida (via First Coast News – WTLV)
• Elizabeth Taylor loved John Warner. Life in Washington nearly killed her. (From “Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon,” by Kate Andersen Brower via Washington Post excerpt) 
• Duke’s Grocery has had a secret location inside the British Embassy for months now (via Washingtonian)
• $945 million spent on state ballot measures in the 2022 cycle (via Open Secrets)
• The issues that drove voters to the polls in 2022 and an early look at 2024 preferences (via FiveThirtyEight). 
  
  

QUOTABLE

“It’s not been able to pass the smell test for me. I have not been able to find anybody who’s been able to explain to me what’s there, other than synthetics.”

– Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) speaking about crypto on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

NUMBER TO KNOW

4

The number of vacancies in the House this week after Karen Bass (D) stepped down to take up her new role as mayor of Los Angeles. All four seats were most recently held by Democrats and leave the chamber with 431 voting members in the final weeks of the term. 

ONE MORE THING

Congress debuts film narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker

The House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth is set to premiere “Grit & Grace: The Fight for the American Dream,” a 30-minute documentary-style film narrated by actress Sarah Jessica Parker, during an event at the National Archives at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The committee is winding down its work at the end of this term and recently released its final report.

Per a release on the film, it features three “powerful stories from across the country that shed light on what it means to find economic security in America and the diverse paths people are taking to get there.”

A livestream of the event, featuring Committee Chair Jim Himes (D-Conn.), will be available on the committee’s website. 

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