Republicans

Politico reports: Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) is showing no signs of stepping down from office despite his guilty plea Tuesday on a felony campaign finance charge in federal court. When asked Wednesday about whether and when he intended to resign, Hunter blew off the question. “Good talk,” Hunter told a POLITICO reporter. Former Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), who pleaded guilty …

Kansas City’s ABC News affiliate reports: A Kansas congressman is tangled in voter fraud and perjury allegations for what he calls a mistake. It all has to do with U.S. Rep. Steve Watkins and a UPS store in Topeka, Kansas. The Shawnee County district attorney is asking the sheriff’s office to investigate whether Watkins committed fraud. Watkins is the freshman …

From the right wing Washington Examiner: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff spied on the top Republican on his panel by obtaining his phone records and publishing them in an impeachment report, Minority Whip Steve Scalise said Wednesday. “It raises a lot of serious questions,” the Louisiana Republican said. “I want to know all the people Adam Schiff is spying …

Politico reports: “Lindsey was good company, he was funny, he was self-deprecating,” the former Secretary of State told Howard Stern on his morning radio show. “He also believed in climate change back in those days,” she continued, taking aim at the Republican for toeing party lines in recent years. “I saw him as somebody who, you know, had been working …

Axios reports: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to name Kelly Loeffler as interim U.S. senator has generated lots of political buzz, due to some Trump loyalists claiming betrayal. The intra-GOP skirmish has obscured the big business story, in that Loeffler will become one of precious few senators with a working knowledge of technology and, in particular, blockchain technology. Loeffler is …

The Tampa Bay Times reports: A fundraising letter sent last week by the campaign of George Buck, a Republican running for Congress in St. Petersburg, suggested a member of the House of Representatives and other Democrats should be executed. The lengthy email dated Nov. 26 repeated an unsupported accusation that U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born Democrat representing Minnesota, secretly …

Uh oh. We might see a Trump cultist catfight. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday said he is “1,000% confident” that Russia, not Ukraine, meddled in the 2016 US presidential election, breaking from President Donald Trump and others in his party who have pushed the discredited conspiracy theory. “It was the Russians. I’m 1,000% confident that the hack of the …

McClatchy reports: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has reached out to Sheldon Adelson, the Republican Party’s largest donor, in recent weeks to “gauge interest” in his potential run for an open Senate seat in Kansas next year, three sources familiar with the matter told McClatchy. It is the latest evidence of Pompeo’s outreach campaign to rally donor support around a …

From the right wing Washington Examiner: Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has filed a $435 million defamation suit against CNN over a story that alleged Nunes met with a fired Ukrainian prosecutor in an effort to dig up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The story — “Giuliani associate willing to tell Congress …

The Week reports: The Democrats’ House Intelligence Committee impeachment report is out and a familiar face makes an appearance among its contents. In one of the report’s only examples of brand new information, call logs showed Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the top ranking Republican on the committee, made contact with President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his now-indicted associate, …

Axios reports: Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) broke with some of his Republican colleagues on Tuesday, telling reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday he has seen “no evidence” Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. “I saw no evidence from our intelligence community, nor from the representatives today from the Department of State, that there is any evidence of any kind that suggests …

The Independent reports: Georgia Republicans announced today that Donald Trump would be the only name to appear on the GOP primary ballot in the state. The decision comes even as former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) and former governor Bill Weld (R-MA) submitted their names to the Georgia Republican Party to appear on the ballot. Trump was the only candidate with …

“They don’t even want to hear from a conservative or conservatives that without whose help Kemp doesn’t become the governor. I guess, I don’t know the way the president has weighed in but my sources have told me he’s apoplectic about it. “No experience, he’s like why are you bringing this person to meet me, one of my sources told …

San Diego’s KUSI-TV reports: In an exclusive interview with KUSI’s Steve Bosh, Congressman Duncan D. Hunter announced that he will plead guilty to one count of misuse of campaign funds in Tuesday’s court appearance.  Hunter’s announcement was updated on the U.S. District Court docket Monday morning. His change of plea hearing is set for December 3, 2019 at 10:00 AM …

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports: After years of denials and claims he was the target of a political witch hunt, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, is scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday morning to change his plea of not guilty to charges stemming from a sweeping campaign finance investigation. The announcement was posted on the U.S. District Court docket Monday …

The Daily Beast reports: A week after claiming that he didn’t know whether Russia or Ukraine was responsible for hacking the DNC server during the 2016 election, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) left Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd astounded when he accused the former president of Ukraine of working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “Russia was very aggressive and they’re much …

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: Gov. Brian Kemp plans to tap financial executive Kelly Loeffler for a U.S. Senate seat next week as he pushes to expand the Georgia GOP’s appeal to women who have fled the party in recent years. The appointment would defy President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders who have repeatedly urged the governor to appoint U.S. …

Talking Points Memo: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one of President Donald Trump’s most vocal acolytes, threatened Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) with a primary challenger in 2022 should he not select Trump’s preferred candidate for a soon-to-be-open Senate seat. It is not clear from where Gaetz, a congressman from Florida, gets the authority to threaten the Georgia governor with a …

ABC News reports: The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the majority-black city of Birmingham violated a state law protecting Confederate monuments when it put plywood panels in front of a towering obelisk in a downtown park. The all-Republican court reversed a circuit judge’s ruling that struck down Alabama’s 2017 law protecting Confederate monuments as an unconstitutional violation of the …

The New York Times reports: At least nine Republican organizations, G.O.P. candidates or advocacy groups are selling “Triggered” or promoting Mr. Trump’s book tour, according to emails obtained by The New York Times, interviews and disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission. The breadth of the Republican establishment’s effort behind Mr. Trump is striking for a noncandidate whose most significant …