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Pres. Trump, GOP On 2018 Legislation: We Hope It Will Be A Bipartisan Year

President Donald Trump, center, accompanied by from left, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., Vice President Mike Pence, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaks after participating in a Congressional Republican Leadership Retreat at Camp David, Md., Saturday, Jan. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

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President Trump alongside top GOP leaders gather at Camp David in Maryland, to give a general outlook for 2018.
Many core tenants of the republican agenda were outlined on Saturday, including construction of the wall, along with reforms for infrastructure, welfare and immigration.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who expects bipartisan support moving forward, also referenced 2017 as one of the more memorable ones of his time in congress, and added the new tax reform bill will be a boost for the economy.

President Donald Trump, right, welcomes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., third from left, to the podium to speak during a news conference after participating in a Congressional Republican Leadership Retreat at Camp David, Md. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The President also mentioned DACA as a top priority for 2018.
“We also obviously went into budget so we went into DACA and how we’re going to do and we hope that we’re going to be able to work out an arrangement with the democrats,” said President Trump. “I think it’s something that they’d like to see happen. it’s something I would like to see happen”.
President Trump has repeatedly told lawmakers that he will not work out a deal for DACA, until construction for the border wall is funded.

House GOP to consider return of earmarks, Ryan wants hearings

Few words in the congressional vocabulary are as profane as “earmark.”

Capitol Hill leaders essentially scrubbed earmarks from the congressional experience a few years ago. They toppled the earmarking process like statues of Communist dictators in Eastern Europe, circa 1989.

Earmarks were dispatched to the dustbin of history.
The problem is that congressional “earmarks” epitomized what the public viewed was wrong with Washington. So the House and Senate -- along with President Barack Obama -- ditched them.
But the earmarks could soon rise from the dead.
Fox has learned that House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, under the direction of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., plans to conduct hearings evaluating the merits and demerits of restoring some forms of earmarks.
Republicans nearly reinstated earmarks in the fall of 2016 before Ryan singlehandedly spiked the effort.
In mid-November 2016, House GOPers huddled in the ornate House Ways and Means Committee hearing room, in the Longworth Office Building, across the street from the Capitol. They plotted new internal rules for the 115th Congress that would start in January, 2017.
GOP Reps. Tom Rooney, Florida, and John Culberson, Texas, each crafted proposals to resuscitate limited forms of earmarks. The House Republican Conference was moments away from voting on the Rooney-Culberson plans.
Then Ryan interceded.
The speaker reminded his colleagues they were just days removed from a “drain the swamp” election. It was bad optics to immediately return to the old way of doing business, though earmarking was an accepted practice under Democrats and Republicans more than a decade ago.
Ryan promised his colleagues he’d address the earmark question in the first quarter of 2017.
Well, that didn’t happen.
Last year was wild. House Republicans incinerated the first quarter trying to pass a bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The GOP brass finally yanked the initial plan off the floor in late March, only to pass an altered version in mid-May. But the endeavor died in the Senate.
Then it was on to tax reform. That’s to say nothing of the political vortex that churned all year on Capitol Hill. Special elections. Administration scandals. Russia. North Korea. Sexual harassment. Government funding. General pandemonium.
There are only so many hours in the day. The earmark issue never again gurgled to the surface.
Earmarks are funny topic on Capitol Hill. When Ryan claimed the speakership in October 2015, he argued that Congress should reassert legislative authorities as prescribed under Article I of the Constitution.
That includes spending power. Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution declares “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” That’s why House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said at that time, “You’re going to see a very refreshing movement to get that power (of the purse) back to the people.”
First, let’s consider what defines an earmark:
House Rule XXI defines earmarks as “a provision or report language included primarily at the request of a Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, or Senator providing, authorizing or recommending a specific amount of discretionary budget authority, credit authority, or other spending authority for a contract, loan, loan guarantee, grant, loan authority, or other expenditure with or to an entity, or targeted to a specific State, locality or Congressional district, other than through a statutory or administrative formula driven or competitive award process.”
In other words, specific money designated for a specific project at a specific place by a specific lawmaker.
But here’s where it gets tricky.
Earmarks pale in comparison when it comes to actual federal spending. Some earmarks in 2007 cost as little as tens of thousands of dollars. That’s nothing when compared to trillions spent on federal entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
The public loves to have federal money go toward projects in their home states and districts. Money for museums. Bridges. Roadways. Dams. Locks. Levies. Research centers at universities. New equipment for police departments. But you’re liable to get an earful if you ask voters if they like earmarks.
Voters turned against lawmakers and earmarks from 2005 to 2008. They didn’t like how House GOP leaders often larded up legislation with earmarks to persuade reluctant lawmakers to support bills they otherwise opposed.
So-called “good government” groups interpreted those efforts as bribes. Scandals erupted about the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska. “Coconut Road” in Florida. There were questions about then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., buying land near his farm in Illinois -- followed by $207 million in earmarks to extend a highway close to Hastert’s land.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., lit up then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for an earmark to help construct a museum near Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York to commemorate Woodstock.
“I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event,” McCain said.
Authorities probed influence peddling involving numerous lawmakers. Several former lawmakers were put on trial or did jail time. Democrats focused their campaign efforts on what voters interpreted as a “culture of corruption” in Washington.
But veteran members of both parties argue there is merit in limited earmarks. The 2016 plan from Culberson would allow earmarks for federal, state and local governments and would originate in subcommittees.
Crafting earmarks at the subcommittee level would grant them proper vetting by members and staff as a bill moves to the floor. Earmarks wouldn’t just appear magically at the end as an afterthought -- and perhaps an effort to coax a lawmaker to vote yes on a bill they otherwise opposed. Rooney’s 2016 effort would allow earmarks for Army Corps of Engineers projects.
It’s easy for the public to lampoon earmarks like the $500,000 National Science Foundation study on crustacean mobility. It involved putting shrimp on treadmills. The same with money for a teapot museum in North Carolina.
But here’s the conundrum in the upcoming earmark debate: what some constituents and lawmakers view as crucial is seen by others as a boondoggle.
The Constitution clearly asserts it’s up to Congress to direct federal spending. That lack of focus means unnamed federal bureaucrats at agencies decide how to spend taxpayer dollars instead of elected representatives.
Ask voters if they want invisible bureaucrats calling the shots -- or their members of Congress.
It’s unclear if lawmakers will get anywhere with earmarks this time or forge a consensus on bringing them back. The “drain the swamp” mantra still resonates. That phrase rhymes with the Democrats’ 2006 “culture of corruption” slogan. And that’s why “earmark” could remain a dirty word in Washington.

Maryland Democrat confessed to taking cash, prosecutors say

A Maryland state senator has confessed to taking cash payments in exchange for conducting official business, federal prosecutors said last week.

State Sen. Nathaniel T. Oaks, a Democrat, is scheduled to stand trial in the spring on charges of bribery and obstruction of justice. Oaks has pleaded not guilty.

Oaks’ confession was revealed in a motion that prosecutors filed against a request by Oaks to have the bribery and obstruction charges tried separately, the Baltimore Sun reported.
The next legislative session for Maryland’s general Assembly begins Wednesday. Oaks’ trial is set to begin right after the session concludes.
The Baltimore Sun reported that it was unsuccessful in reaching Oaks or his defense attorney.
Oaks is accused of accepting $15,300 from someone he believed was a “wealthy Texas businessman” but who was working for the FBI, the Sun reported, citing information from prosecutors.
Subsequently, while cooperating with authorities, Oaks reportedly coached an FBI investigation target to “Just say no” when Oaks offered the subject cash as part of the investigation, court documents said.
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, also a Democrat, told the Sun last week that Oaks should his day in court before the Legislature considers whether he should leave the state Senate.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, disagreed.
“No question he should be removed from office,” Hogan told the Sun on Friday.

Trump calls Wolff's White House expose 'Fire and Fury' a 'work of fiction'

President Trump on Saturday called the recently released White House expose “Fire and Fury” a “work of fiction” and said that the purported White House interviews with him exist only in the author’s “imagination.”

The president’s comments followed the official release on Friday of Michael Wolff’s book, which questions Trump’s emotional and intellectual competence to run the Oval Office.

Excerpts from Wolff’s book, repeated often in the liberal media, say sources close to the president claim he is forgetful and doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to grasp the complex policy and politics of being president
"I went to the best colleges,” said Trump at Camp David. “I … was a great student, made billions of billions of dollars, was one of the top business people, went into television and for 10 years was a tremendous success as you've probably heard.”

Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

He continued: “Ran for president one time and won. And then I hear this guy who doesn't know me at all, didn't interview me for three hours, his imagination. ….  I consider (the book) a work of fiction.”

....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

In criticizing the book, Trump also slammed his former political strategist Steve Bannon, whose quotes in the book are critical of the president. 

....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

“Just so you know, I didn't have an interview, never in the Oval Office,” Trump continued. “And I did a quick interview with (Wolff) a long time ago having to do with an article. But I don't know this man. Sloppy Steve brought him in. That's why sloppy Steve is looking for a job.”
Earlier in the day, Trump hit back at the suggestions and accusations about his intellect and emotional state by tweeting, “my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.”
“Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.....” he wrote in one tweet.
Trump continued minutes later: “Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....”
Trump ended with: “....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!”
On Friday, Trump called Wolff “a total loser” when he retweeted a parody cover of the book that the Republican Party had tweeted earlier Friday.
“Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!” he wrote.
Wolff wrote the book over 18 months, in which he claims to have spoken with more than 200 people. He said he had access to top officials inside the Trump administration, including the president, according to an interview Thursday with the Hollywood Reporter that details the backstory to the book's publishing.