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Trump impeachment call from Rep. Amash 'very disturbing,' Kevin McCarthy says

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is disputing five-term U.S. Rep. Justin Amash’s call for President Trump’s impeachment.
Joining a growing chorus of Republicans, McCarthy said Tuesday that Rep. Amash, R-Mich., was out of step with others in the Republican Party and with the American people.
On “Sunday Morning Futures” this past weekend McCarthy told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, “What he wants is attention in this process. He’s not a criminal attorney. He’s never met Mueller. He’s never met Barr. And now he’s coming forward with this?”
“It’s very disturbing,” McCarthy remarked. “This is exactly what you would expect from Justin. He never supported the president. And I think he’s just looking for attention.”
“Mr. Amash always has a different voting record than most of us, anyway,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday.
In a series of tweets Saturday, Amash said attempts to obstruct justice as outlined in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election were “impeachable conduct.” He also accused Attorney General William Barr of misleading the public, prompting swift backlash from his fellow party-members. Amash is the first Republican to call for President Trump’s impeachment.
“While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances,” he tweeted, saying that unlike many of his colleagues he had read the Mueller report in full, “the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct.”
Amash, who is a founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told the Associated Press, “Their pressure doesn't have influence on me. I really am not concerned about what Kevin McCarthy thinks about it."
On Monday, the caucus voted to condemn Amash’s call for impeachment by a show of hands.
Representative Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee and a former chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said that every member in attendance was unified in their opposition toward Amash’s comments. Jordan tweeted in a response Tuesday: “The @freedomcaucus is about FREEDOM. This isn’t not about Amash. It’s not even about the President. It’s about what Emmet Flood said: if the intel community can target the President for political reasons, imagine what they can do to any one of us.”
President Trump also fired back Sunday, tweeting: “Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy.”
“If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump, he would see that it was nevertheless strong on NO COLLUSION and, ultimately, NO OBSTRUCTION...” said Trump. “Anyway, how do you Obstruct when there is no crime and, in fact, the crimes were committed by the other side? Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents (sic) hands!”
National GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel accused Amash of “parroting Democrats' talking points on Russia.”
Closer to home, Michigan state representative Jim Lowe said that he would run for Amash’s seat in the Republican primary next year. While Michigan GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox attacked Amash's lack of loyalty tweeting, "Now, in a desperate attempt to grab headlines and advance his own presidential ambitions, Amash is peddling a narrative that has repeatedly been proven false. Shameful."
Any moves on impeachment would be a formal charge by the House. The Senate would then hold a trial on whether to strip President Trump of his office. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding her increasingly restless caucus to a step-by-step process and say it would take more Republicans than just Amash and broad public sentiment to trigger impeachment proceedings.

Russian 'bear' bombers intercepted near Alaska for second time in two days

Russian “Bear” bombers flew near Alaska under fighter escort for the second time in two days.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it had to scramble two pair of U.S. F-22 fighter jets to intercept the Russian formation on Tuesday.
“The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and at no time entered U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace,” NORAD said in a statement posted on social media.
It’s not immediately clear how close the Russian bombers came to the United States.
The incident occurred just a day after four nuclear-capable Russian bombers and two Russian fighter jets were intercepted off the west coast of Alaska by U.S. aircraft.
NORAD said Monday that its early warning system identified the four Tupolev Tu-95 bombers and two Su-35 fighters entering the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone, but noted that the Russian aircraft never entered American or Canadian airspace.
The statement said two of the Russian bombers initially were intercepted by one pair of F-22 fighter jets, while another pair of F-22s intercepted the other two bombers and the Su-35s later on. Further details of the encounter were not provided.
Russia's Ministry of Defense said on Twitter Tuesday that the U.S. planes accompanied the Russian aircraft along part of their route.
Russia resumed long-range bomber patrols in 2007 and has averaged up to 7 flights a year, according to NORAD.
The U.S. Air Forde regularly flies bombers and reconnaissance aircraft near Russia throughout the year. In March, four B-52 bombers flew over the Baltic Sea in Europe.
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and Samuel Chamberlain contributed to this report.

Nadler's subpoenas are evidence Dems don't know what to do next: attorney

The subpoenas that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler issued Tuesday represent a miscalculation at best, a former deputy independent counsel for Ken Starr said Tuesday evening on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle."
“I just think that Nadler doesn’t know exactly what to do,” Solomon Wisenberg told host Laura Ingraham, referring to the subpoenaing of former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks and former White House deputy counsel Annie Donaldson. The latest subpoenas came after former White House counsel Don McGhan defied his subpoena, opting not to appear at Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing.
“I mean, I think they’ve terribly misplayed their hand here," Wisenberg said, referring to House Democrats. "These battles – these checks-and-balances battles – have gone on throughout the history of the republic."
Wisenberg explained that Congress has the right to subpoena and, in most cases, the president can invoke executive privilege in order to prevent a member of his administration from testifying before lawmakers.
A previous subpoena issued to Attorney General William Barr was “improper” and "demagogic,” Wisenberg said, adding that there is a “statute” covering the subpoena sent to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
“It says Congress can do this. Congress can go to the IRS and say, ‘Give us a tax return,’” Wisenberg said.
“You’ve got to tell me if you’re talking to me about something, what’s the particular thing you’re subpoenaing the person for? What are you trying to do and what are they claiming. That doesn’t lend itself easily to gross generalizations,” he added.

Trump's agenda hampered by troubling number of lower court injunctions, Barr says

Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday said he has noticed a troubling trend of nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts that have taken their toll on President Trump’s agenda and threaten the political process for future administrations.
Barr, who has been accused by Democrats of protecting Trump after the release of the Mueller report, told the American Law Institute that there is a new trend of judicial "willingness" to review executive action, which injects courts into the political process.
He pointed to the district court in California that in January 2018 issued a temporary injunction to block the Trump administration from ending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
DACA has protected about 800,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas. The Obama-era program includes hundreds of thousands of college-age students.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup said at the time that lawyers in favor of DACA demonstrated that the immigrants “were likely to suffer serious, irreparable harm” without court action. The judge also said the lawyers have a strong chance of succeeding at trial.
The White House was swift to criticize these lower court injunctions and called this particular decision “outrageous.” Vice President Mike Pence recently said the administration will ask the Supreme Court to bar them.
"So what have these nationwide injunction wrought? Dreamers remain in limbo, the political process has been pre-empted, and we have had over a year of bitter political division that included a government shutdown of unprecedented length," Barr said.
Barr said nationwide injunctions violate the separation of powers. He said that since Trump took office, there have been 37 nationwide injunctions — more than one a month -- against his office and he said there is likely no end in sight. He said, by comparison, there were two instances where district courts issued an injunction in President Obama’s first two years. 
The Associated Press wrote that this is “the latest example of Barr moving to embrace Trump’s political talking points.” Its report pointed out the Trump criticized these rulings at a rally earlier this month, saying, “activist judges who issue nationwide injunctions based on their personal beliefs, which undermine democracy and threaten the rule of law.”
Barr has brushed aside criticism from Democrats that he is in the president’s pocket. He told the Wall Street Journal in a recent interview that he is defending the presidency, not Trump.
“If you destroy the presidency and make it an errand boy for Congress, we’re going to be a much weaker and more divided nation,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Hannity: Secret FBI transcripts from Russia probe 'must be made available'

Fox News' host Sean Hannity told his audience Monday that a barrage of news information will be released in the coming days and weeks that will prove that  "Trump-Russia collusion" was a "hoax from the get-go" and called for secret FBI transcripts to made public.
"At this hour, your federal government is in possession of transcripts from 2016 featuring secretly recorded conversations between FBI informants and one-time trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos," Hannity said in his monologue.
"According to those who have seen these transcripts, its contents are chock-full of clear irrefutable, incontrovertible, exculpatory evidence proving Trump-Russia collusion was always a hoax from the get-go. This includes former congressman Trey Gowdy who is now calling these documents 'game changing.'"
Gowdy, who appeared on "Sunday Morning Futures" told host Maria Bartiromo spoke about these potential transcripts.
“Some of us have been fortunate enough to know whether or not those transcripts exist. But they haven’t been made public, and I think one, in particular ... has the potential to actually persuade people," Gowdy said. “Very little in this Russia probe I’m afraid is going to persuade people who hate Trump or love Trump. But there is some information in these transcripts that has the potential to be a game-changer if it’s ever made public.”
Hannity said "this material must be made available" explaining its importance.
Because if Comey, Strzok, the highest level officials... the upper echelon, the Intel community were withholding exculpatory evidence, let me tell you this is bigger than we ever thought," Hannity said.
"It means the of premeditated fraud, conspiracy against the FISA court, that means there was a real attempt to steal a presidential election with Russian lies paid for by Hillary and an effort when they lost, to unseat a duly elected president of you, the people. Much worse than we ever knew."

Reince Priebus: 2020 the 'biggest political battle in modern history'

President Trump's former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus says the 2020 election will be the "biggest political battle in modern history."
"For a Republican to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania at any given presidential election will be tough. It will be a fight. This will not be easy. It doesn't matter... This is going to be a fight," Priebus said Monday on "The Ingraham Angle."
"The Democrats are energized, the Republicans will be energized and this will be the biggest political battle in modern history."
Trump focused on the economy at a fiery rally Monday at the Energy Aviation Hangar in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, just two days after 2020 Democrat presidential frontrunner Joe Biden held his own campaign rally in nearby Philadelphia.
Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman, criticized the Democratic presidential candidates platform, in particular Joe Biden, saying it will be tough to run against Trump's economic numbers.
"You cannot win Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania on a $93 trillion green new deal, 600,000 per household, $32 trillion in a health care package. It's not going to work. So the Trump campaign, I believe, is going to jam down the throats of every person that is watching on television these numbers," Priebus said.
In a video posted on Saturday, Biden is seen fielding a question from a member of the Youth Climate Strike, a group which organized over 100 marches worldwide by young people to protest climate change in March.
"You know, I'm the guy that did all this stuff," Biden said. "Read RealClearPolitics, it'll tell you how I started this whole thing back in '87 on climate change."
Fox News' Gregg Re and Anna Hopkins contributed to this report.