House Republicans used the first hearing of the new committee to investigate the Capitol attacks on Jan 6, 2021, to explore the Biden-era investigation into the pipe bombs left at the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters the day before riots — and relitigate conspiracy theories and grievances. It illustrated how Republicans plan to use their new select subcommittee and how far apart the two parties remain five years later in their accounts of the day a violent mob stormed the Capitol to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the chair of the new GOP-led panel, questioned why it took nearly half a decade for law enforcement to identify a suspect in the pipe bombs case, when the Trump Justice Department apprehended the alleged perpetrator, Brian Cole, late last year. “How is it that the Biden-Wray FBI was able to flawlessly execute a cellular dragnet to capture the information and eventually apprehend those trespassing at the Capitol, but failed to exercise the same investigative technique into the pipe bomber,” Loudermilk said, referring to President Joe Biden and his FBI chief, Christopher Wray. “How is it that the [Democratic]-controlled select committee to investigate January 6th managed to write a final report in which they cover more than 700 pages and 8 chapters without ever mentioning the pipe bombs until an appendix in the back of the report?,” Loudermilk added. Michael Romano, the former deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Capitol Siege Section called to testify by the Democrats, said the pipe bombs investigation was particularly difficult, given the “needle-in-a-haystack nature of the evidence.” At one point, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Tex.) physically brandished a binder that appeared to be the report of the previous Democratic-led Jan. 6 committee in his hands, calling that panel’s work a “total sham.” And Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) noted that Stewart Rhodes, a leader of the Oath Keepers, was in attendance for the hearing. Rhodes had been convicted of seditious conspiracy before he was pardoned by President Donald Trump, along with other rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who also served on the Democratic-led Jan 6. panel, called Cole’s apprehension a “rare bright spot” in the last year of federal law under the Trump administration. Still, Raskin maintained that Cole voted for Trump twice and believed the conspiracy championed by Trump and his allies that Biden unfairly won the 2020 election. He also questioned whether Trump’s sweeping pardons for the Capitol rioters included Cole. “Nothing will ever whitewash the indelible facts of that day,” Raskin said. The House passed a two-bill government spending package Wednesday as Congress races to clear as many funding bills as possible ahead of the Jan. 30 deadline to avoid a shutdown. Members voted 341-79 to pass the measure, which would fund the departments of State and Treasury through September, along with the IRS, the judiciary and the Federal Trade Commission through the end of the current fiscal year. It was a victory for House GOP leaders, who have been working to quell intraparty conflicts amid concerns about attendance issues. It also puts a dent in the work left to do in the appropriations process — the House has now passed eight of the 12 annual spending bills. The vast majority of federal spending has yet to be finalized, however. Work remains to advance massive bills to fund the Pentagon, the departments of Health and Human Services, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Homeland Security. Those outstanding measures account for nearly 90 percent of the funding Congress provides each year to federal agencies, and they are being mired in major political disagreements. Yet the failure of two amendments on the House floor Wednesday to the funding package, which were sought by conservative hard-liners as a condition of agreeing to consider the measure on the floor, is likely a promising sign for the legislation’s fate in the Senate, where bipartisan support will be necessary. The House Wednesday voted down,127-291, one amendment that would zero out the $315 million in funding for democracy programs at the State Department, including the National Endowment for Democracy, a four-decades old organization rooted in efforts to counter communism that provides grants to democracy and civil society groups abroad. The group has been demonized by Elon Musk and some Republicans including the amendment sponsors, Arizona Reps. Eli Crane and Andy Biggs, as well as Rep. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma. Michigan Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, who currently sits on the organization’s board, voted against the amendment. House lawmakers also rejected, in a 163-257 vote, the amendment offered by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) that would cut by 20 percent funding for the District of Columbia district and appeals courts and eliminate salaries and funding for Judges James Boasberg and Judge Deborah Boardman. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) was the lone lawmaker who voted “present.” Boasberg and Boardman have angered Republicans with some of their legal decisions perceived as antagonistic of President Donald Trump, prompting some calls on Capitol Hill for their impeachment. Attorney General Pam Bondi will appear before the House Judiciary Committee Feb. 11, Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the panel, said in an interview Wednesday night. Her appearance, which had been postponed due to the government shutdown, comes at a perilous time for the Justice Department. Bipartisan lawmakers have criticized her agency’s handling of the release of files in the case against Jeffrey Epstein as mandated by Congress under law and now will have to answer for the legality of President Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela. Decisions under Bondi’s watch to prosecute the president’s political adversaries, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, have also drawn scrutiny after Trump ordered Bondi to pursue them. Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee are quietly working on a health package to address long-standing, bipartisan goals like overhauling rules for pharmacy benefit managers before the month is over. Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) told POLITICO he is tackling legislation with his panel’s top Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon. The package would likely go beyond PBMs — middlemen who negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurers and large companies — and address a slew of other bipartisan health policies. The plan is to have something ready to coincide with the Jan. 30 deadline for new government funding legislation. “It could be a vehicle of its own or part of a package,” Crapo said. “There are a lot of other health reforms that people are talking about.” Crapo said nothing has been ruled out. He added that the White House is supportive of the effort. Axios first reported the bipartisan negotiations Wednesday. The House and Senate did craft a bipartisan health package that included a PBM overhaul and other provisions affecting how Medicare pays doctors that was to be included in a spending bill at the end of 2024. However, the package was scrapped after complaints from Elon Musk and then President-elect Donald Trump, who were concerned the bill had become unwieldy. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have slammed pharmacy benefit managers for what they call anti-competitive tactics that have hurt independent pharmacies and kept drug prices artificially high. Brand-name drugmakers have blamed the PBMs for high drug prices for years, including in a high-profile advertising campaign. The PBM industry has responded that it negotiates to keep rates low for plans and consumers. This month, the industry lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, hired new leaders who are Republicans: President David Marin, who was once a top aide to Virginia GOP Rep. Tom Davis, and Chief Communications Officer Brendan Buck, formerly an aide to GOP speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan. Wyden told POLITICO he would like to see more funding for community health centers and other projects, especially after deep funding cuts for tackling substance abuse and mental health. The Trump administration told thousands of organizations this week their grant funding will be cut, primarily discretionary grants from the HHS agency Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “This not 2024,” he said. “SAMSHA today took a big hit.” Currently, the Senate is embroiled in bipartisan talks over what to do about enhanced Obamacare subsidies that expired on Dec. 31. Crapo said those talks aren’t having any impact on his efforts to build a separate package. “That is a whole separate negotiation,” he said. “There’s a lot of health care issues. That is one and there are 50 others.” Democrats and Republicans have been trying to address PBMs since the demise of the health package a little over a year ago. House Republicans included several provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer, but they were stripped out in the Senate because they did not comply with budget rules. House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said Republicans were open to trying again. “If we could do something in that space, we are all for it,” he said Wednesday. House Republicans have proposed requiring the Trump administration to spend money on body cameras for ICE agents as part of the Department of Homeland Security funding bill lawmakers are currently negotiating, according to a senior GOP appropriator. Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei, the Republican leading House negotiations on the bill, told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the measure would be explicit about how DHS is supposed to spend federal cash. “We’re going to give them the money for it — and with the language that says this is what it’s for,” Amodei said. “They’re not going to get the money going, ‘Gee, we sure hope you use that for body cameras.’ It’ll be, ‘That’s what it’s for.” After an ICE agent fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis last week, Democratic leaders are demanding that new DHS funding come with rules to crack down on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies. Besides requiring the use of body cameras, Democrats want to bar DHS agents from wearing masks and unmarked uniforms. The Biden administration first provided body cameras to some immigration enforcement agents in 2024, but they have not been issued to all officers. As the Trump administration now deploys federal immigration agents throughout the country, Amodei said Republicans see a need to give DHS more funding for equipment law enforcement typically uses. “Some of the stuff in evolving from a Biden-era ICE to a Trump ICE is not necessarily MAGA,” he said, noting that most law enforcement organizations in major metropolitan areas use body cameras. “Even the law enforcement people say those are a good tool for you, regardless of what your politics are.” Congress has just over two weeks to finalize and clear the homeland security funding bill and eight others before federal funding runs out Jan. 30 for the vast majority of the federal government. Amodei said Wednesday that House and Senate negotiators have less than a handful of issues to resolve as they trade offers to finalize the DHS spending measure. The money for body cameras was included in the latest offer House Republicans sent their counterparts on DHS funding, according to Amodei. And while he said Democrats are likely to propose changes, he predicts mandated funding for that equipment will make it into the final product. “I’m sure there’ll be some dickering over money, but the concept I expect to remain in it,” he said. Speaker Mike Johnson is making plans to craft another major, party-line policy bill — even as some of his own GOP committee chairs don’t think such an undertaking is possible. Johnson and a group of House Republicans, including Budget Chair Jodey Arrington of Texas, met Wednesday morning on the topic to discuss what priorities could fit into another filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation measure, Johnson told reporters Wednesday afternoon. The speaker, who has promised hard-liners several times he would lead his conference in pursuit of another megabill after last year’s success, reiterated he is very “bullish” on its prospects. He also said this was a topic of conversation when he spoke Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader John Thune during their regular meeting. Johnson told reporters that any follow-up legislation to the “big, beautiful bill” of 2025 would be “House-driven,” but he was confident the Senate would take up whatever the House passes. His optimistic talk comes a day after the Republican Study Committee released a comprehensive blueprint for a second reconciliation bill, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said meetings on the matter were starting to ramp up. Leadership will have to convince some of their skeptical members to come on board, however, as multiple chairs of key committees — including Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith — have said in recent months they don’t see a path forward. The effort is especially perilous now given ideological differences and the narrower majority Johnson is navigating in an election year. The House Administration Committee on Wednesday advanced a bill along party lines to restrict congressional stock trading, swatting down various Democratic amendments to add stricter provisions. The Stop Insider Trading Act sponsored by Chair Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and backed by GOP leadership would allow lawmakers to hold the current stocks they own, but require a seven-day notice before making sales. Democrats have criticized Steil’s bill, arguing it’s more lenient and less responsive to voters’ concerns than a competing bipartisan proposal which requires members of Congress to divest from individual stocks. Democrats in the House Administration Committee proposed six amendments Wednesday to add more aggressive provisions to the Republican-written legislation — including one to replace it with the bipartisan legislation — but all were voted down along party lines. Steil characterized Democrats’ criticisms as childish and derailing substantive progress on the issue. “They’re part of the Goldilocks rule… the porridge is just a little too hot. The porridge is just a little too cold,” Steil said during the committee markup Wednesday. “I often think about a second-grade nephew, who, when you offer him an ice cream cone, says no. Because he wants a banana split.” But Steil said he’d be willing to work across the aisle to fine-tune language regarding an exception for members’ spouses who work in fields which involve stock trading. Steil told reporters after the committee meeting that he’s received assurances from House leadership that his bill will move to the floor quickly, but said he was deferring to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise on the exact timing. Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a co-sponsor of the bipartisan stock trading legislation, accused Republican leadership of “trying to co-opt the language of a stock trading ban and substitute something that is completely not a stock trading ban,” during a press conference before Wednesday’s committee mark-up. Democrats plan to file a discharge petition for a new version of the more expansive stock trading bill, which will apply its provisions to the president and vice president as well as members of Congress. House Republicans vaulted a two-bill spending package over a key procedural hurdle Wednesday afternoon, setting up a vote later in the day on final passage of the measure. Republicans stayed mostly united on the test vote to advance the package that would fund the departments of Treasury and State, as well as the IRS and the Federal Trade Commission, through Sept. 30. The 213-210 vote marks a win for Speaker Mike Johnson, as he works to get his party’s legislative agenda back on track after one vote failed and two more were canceled Tuesday. The vote Wednesday to move forward with consideration of the funding measure will also facilitate consideration of two amendments sought by conservatives. One, from Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), would cut appeals court funding for the District of Columbia by 20 percent and eliminate funding for expenses and salaries of two judges. The other, from Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), would zero out funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, an independent nonprofit foundation that supports projects around the world with the stated goal of promoting democracy. Allowing votes on these amendments constitutes an olive branch to hard-liners who almost blew up floor proceedings last week with complaints about earmarks, though neither of the amendments to be debated Wednesday deal with that issue. The compromises come as Congress is rushing to approve more spending bills before the Jan. 30 deadline to avoid another government shutdown. Sen. Elissa Slotkin on Wednesday confirmed she is under federal investigation for her participation in a November video urging military members not to follow illegal orders. In a video response to the investigation, the Michigan Democrat said President Donald Trump was weaponizing the federal government against those who disagree with him. Slotkin is the latest video participant to face investigation from the administration. “To be clear, this is the president’s playbook,” Slotkin said. “Truth doesn’t matter. Facts don’t matter, and anyone who disagrees with him becomes an enemy, and he then weaponizes the federal government against them. It’s legal intimidation and physical intimidation meant to get you to shut up.” Slotkin, who was recruited by the CIA as a Middle East analyst and served three tours in Iraq, was among five other Democratic military veterans featured in the video, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Reps. Maggie Goodlander (N.H.), Jason Crow (Colo.), Chris Deluzio (Pa.) and Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.). Trump at the time called the lawmakers’ actions “seditious” and said they should face trial. Crow said he had been contacted by the Trump administration as well about the video. “Donald Trump is using the Department of Justice as a weapon to harass and intimidate me in particular, as well as the other members who filmed that video,” he told reporters. “We are not going to stop it from us doing our job.” Kelly this week filed a lawsuit against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior military leaders after his own investigation was announced and the Defense Department began to take steps to downgrade his retirement rank. Slotkin first told The New York Times she had learned about the investigation from the office of Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro’s office told POLITICO it does not confirm or deny the existence of federal investigations. Following Trump’s response to the November video, Slotkin on Wednesday said that threats against her and her family “went through the roof.” “We had over 1,000 threats come in. Over 100 were credible and are being investigated,” she said. “I went on 24/7 security from Capitol Police. I had a bomb threat at my house. My parents were swatted in the middle of the night, and my siblings had cop cars placed in their driveways, and now [Trump] is using his political appointees at the FBI and the Department of Justice to follow through with his threats.” Slotkin said that freedom of speech is “worth fighting for.” “Right now, speaking out against the abuse of power is the most patriotic thing we can do,” she said. Nick Wu contributed to this report. Senate GOP leaders are working overtime to quash a resolution requiring President Donald Trump to come to Congress before taking additional military action in Venezuela. They don’t yet know if they have the votes. Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday they are in conversations with rank-and-file GOP members, five of whom voted with Democrats to advance the measure last week. The administration has offered “assurances,” he said, including by stating there are no U.S. troops currently in Venezuela and no plan to send them in. “These are consequential, big decisions and people want to feel like they’re honoring their obligations to the people that they represent and their own views on some of these issues,” Thune said. Senate Republicans will first vote on a procedural off-ramp turning off the “privilege” of the resolution, Thune confirmed in a later interview. Under that strategy, senators will be asked to concur in a point of order that the resolution should not be subject to a simple-majority vote since there are no ongoing hostilities. One of the five, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, told reporters earlier Wednesday that he would support that proposal if it is offered, pointing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pledge to abide by notification procedures if the administration sends in troops. Besides Hawley, GOP leaders would need to win one more of the four remaining Republicans who previously voted to advance the resolution. Thune said in the interview it was “to be determined” if leaders could win the necessary votes. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Wednesday she is going to continue to support the war powers resolution, while Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he would also vote against the point of order. “I don’t think they have the votes right now,” he said about leadership’s legislative gambit. Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), a key swing vote, said wouldn’t say how he planned to vote on the procedural question but praised the Trump administration for being responsive to Congress’ concerns. Connor O’Brien contributed to this report. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will vote next week to hold former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress after she defied a subpoena and failed to appear Wednesday morning for her scheduled deposition. It follows former President Bill Clinton’s refusal the day before to comply with a subpoena and sit for an interview with lawmakers as part of their investigation into Jeffrey Epstein — an outcome that resulted in Comer’s pledge to hold him in contempt of Congress, too. “I think what’s most disappointing to the Oversight Committee is the fact that we have, in good faith, negotiated with the Clintons’ attorney for five months,” Comer (R-Ky.) told reporters. “We felt like Hillary Clinton could offer some information on [Epstein associate Ghislaine] Maxwell.” Comer said his panel would vote on contempt for both Clintons during a markup slated for next Wednesday, which would then be brought to the House floor. A contempt vote could have implications ranging from symbolic to criminal. But the Justice Department has already shown an interest in prosecuting President Donald Trump’s political adversaries, signaling there could be grave consequences for the couple — especially Hillary Clinton, who ran against Trump in 2016. In a public letter to Comer sent Tuesday, Bill and Hillary Clinton argued the subpoenas issued to them over the summer were invalid and maintained the exercise was designed to embarrass and put them in prison. They also said they have already given Congress whatever information they have about Epstein, the late convicted sex offender with whom Bill Clinton had a documented rapport. Comer also said Wednesday his panel would depose Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator who is now serving a 20-year sentence for her part in the sex trafficking scheme. He had previously indicated he did not intend to call her up to sit for an interview after issuing her a subpoena because her legal team had indicated she would not cooperate with their questioning. A committee spokesperson said the panel had reached out to Maxwell’s attorney to schedule a deposition as a result of lawmakers’ renewed interest, but is still expected she would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights. The deposition would require members and staff to visit Texas, where Maxwell remains incarcerated.