House Republicans on Wednesday introduced legislation that would slash funding for the Justice Department and U.S. attorneys' offices across the country, the latest attempt by Republicans to punish federal law enforcement agencies, which they say are being used as a weapon against conservatives, particularly former President Donald J. Trump.
The spending bill, approved along party lines by a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, would cut salaries and other expenses at the Justice Department by 20 percent and cut the budgets of U.S. attorneys' offices by 11 percent.
The announcement comes as the Justice Department files two federal lawsuits against the former president and presumed 2024 Republican nominee for allegedly attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and storing classified materials.
It's also an early indication that House Republicans are again trying to shoehorn partisan policy mandates aimed at fueling political grievances and culture war issues into the annual government spending bill. A similar process took place last year, but the most conservative measures were ultimately abandoned in bipartisan negotiations with Senate Democrats and the White House.
This year's efforts similarly initially failed, but in the meantime, House Republican leaders are again stuffing far-right policies into spending bills to please their ultra-conservative core and appease the party's most conservative members, ahead of a September budget deadline and the November elections.
As lawmakers are scheduled to debate budget proposals for the departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security in the coming days, Republicans are expected to force votes on proposals such as cutting the salaries of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to $1, completely eliminating Secretary of State Antony Blinken's salary, cutting funding for Mayorkas' office by $10 million and banning U.S. funding to Ukraine, including the use of taxpayer money to approve arms sales to Kiev.
The bill already includes a series of conservative social policy mandates, including measures to ban the Department of Defense from using funds to promote critical race theory and allow drag queen story hours on military bases, as well as a ban on government agencies from enforcing a series of executive orders issued by President Biden on climate change. The bill also prohibits government agencies from allowing federal employees to take paid leave to obtain an abortion.
Some Republicans are trying to go further. Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale announced this week that he would add a provision to the defense budget that would cut funding for IVF treatments, which he called “a source of destruction of life.”
Spending bills that fund the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been particularly contentious in the House, where conservatives are seeking to defund agencies they see as hostile to them and their allies. Hard-right lawmakers announced Wednesday they will move this week to sue Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas seeking audio recordings of interviews by the special counsel about Biden's handling of classified material.
House Republicans have vowed to retaliate since Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith accused Trump of storing classified documents at his Florida home.
They quickly learned that this is easier said than done.
The special counsel's expenses are funded outside the regular congressional appropriations process under a 1988 law that established a permanent fund in the Treasury Department to cover the office's expenses.
“This is a separate, independent account and it's effectively auto-funded and on autopilot,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference last month. “So it needs to be handled separately.”
“The special counsel also cannot be involved in political vendettas,” he continued. “That's the view that a lot of people see right now. We haven't agreed on what that solution would be, but we're actively discussing it right now.”
For now, Republican leaders have agreed to use the Justice Department bill to make broad cuts to law enforcement, but some far-right lawmakers are still pushing for the addition of provisions targeting Smith. Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) told Fox News he plans to introduce an amendment to prevent any funds in the bill from being used to prosecute presidential candidates before the 2024 election. However, it is unclear how that would affect the case, given that Smith's independently funded office is handling the case against Trump. “A politically motivated and armed Justice Department has been reined in and will no longer bend to the political whims of the Biden Administration,” said Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., who chairs a subcommittee on the committee that oversees the Justice Department. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation will be refocused on its core operations, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' rash of ill-advised rulemakings challenging constitutional rights will be thwarted.”
Democrats unanimously opposed the bill, accusing Republicans of pushing measures that undermine law enforcement efforts while condemning crime.
“This will significantly reduce the number of FBI special agents and analysts – the excellent public servants who keep us safe by preventing and investigating everything from human and drug trafficking to public corruption, kidnapping, gang attacks and cybercrime,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Representative Matt Cartwright.
The bill is unlikely to pass the Democratic-led Senate and could face tough challenges in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Last year, Republicans were forced to bypass the Appropriations Committee because they lacked the votes within their party to send the bill to the Assembly, and then a bloc of ultra-conservatives rebelled against a spending deal Johnson struck with Democrats and couldn't even secure a vote on the full House floor.
The collapse reflects the precarious balance House Republican leadership faces as it tries to pass 12 spending bills to fund the government, with key hard-liners on the Appropriations Committee insisting on including deeply conservative measures in the spending bills.
As a result, mainstream Republicans in politically competitive districts are being forced to either swallow bills that Democrats will use against them in election ads, or rebel on the House floor and refuse to support their own party's bills.