Wake up with the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er: New face for free­dom and some debate about par­dons

Bat­tle lines in the 119th Con­gress are more solid­i­fied now that we know how the final con­test shook out (it was good news for Democ­rats). So, with Speak­er Mike John­son (R‑LA) locked into his 220–215 major­i­ty, which will shrink once mem­bers leave the House for their jobs in the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, how new mem­bers fall into place will say a lot about how their next two years in Wash­ing­ton are going to play out. 

This morn­ing, Con­gres­sion­al Reporter Cami Mon­deaux intro­duced us to North Car­oli­na Repub­li­can Rep.-elect Mark Har­ris, who has hint­ed he is inter­est­ed in join­ing the rab­ble-rous­ing House Free­dom Cau­cus. 

“I made no bones about it in the cam­paign that I intend­ed to, you know, be involved with the Free­dom Cau­cus,” Har­ris told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er. “I do think that we’re at an oppor­tu­ni­ty now where many of the folks in the Free­dom Cau­cus who have con­tin­ued to sound that alarm about the nation­al debt cer­tain­ly are going to have … an oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead.”

The hard-lin­ers have gone through a bevy of changes in recent months and years. They are con­sis­tent­ly loud agi­ta­tors when it comes to bud­get fights. Those loud mem­bers have some­times spo­ken up in a way that got them uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly removed from the group — Reps. Ken Buck (R‑CO), Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene (R‑GA), and War­ren David­son (R‑OH) have all had their mem­ber­ship revoked in the last two years. 

But the band of bud­get hawks has had an impres­sive grip on pow­er. Johnson’s razor-thin majori­ties, which, as men­tioned, aren’t improv­ing next year, mean it only takes a hand­ful of rebels to tank rules and leg­is­la­tion. And the Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers haven’t been afraid to do so. 

Har­ris is close allies with mem­bers of the group already. He cam­paigned next to for­mer Chair­man Jim Jor­dan (R‑OH) and is close with found­ing mem­ber for­mer Rep. Mark Mead­ows. 

North Car­oli­na was an impor­tant swing state for Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump in 2024 and Harris’s join­ing Wash­ing­ton as a mem­ber of that del­e­ga­tion will be bol­stered if he joins the Free­dom Cau­cus ranks. 

“The pres­i­dent knows that the strongest sup­port­ers in Con­gress are in the House Free­dom Cau­cus,” Chair­man Andy Har­ris (R‑MD) told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er in an inter­view last month. “I think we will have the atten­tion of the White House and his ear to bring them along more to our point of view.”

Click here to read more about the pos­si­ble newest Free­dom Cau­cus recruit.

Par­don me? 

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s sur­prise par­don of his son Hunter Biden over the hol­i­day week­end has dis­ap­point­ed and frus­trat­ed Democ­rats, angered Repub­li­cans, and set off spec­u­la­tion about who else might win a reprieve before the end of his term. 

The names get­ting float­ed vary — wild­ly. 

Some Democ­rats are sug­gest­ing Biden’s next blan­ket par­don go to none oth­er than Trump, Nation­al Cor­re­spon­dent Mabin­ty Quarshie wrote this morn­ing. 

“The slate should be wiped clean. I think it’s by far the most bal­anced way to do it,” retir­ing Sen. Joe Manchin (I‑WV), who cau­cus­es with Democ­rats, told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er. “Here in Con­gress, with the sen­a­tors and con­gress­peo­ple, it would bal­ance things out and calm things down.”

On the oth­er hand, Biden might need to con­sid­er shield­ing var­i­ous Democ­rats who could be on the receiv­ing end of the Trump administration’s wrath when he returns to the White House next month, Con­gres­sion­al Reporter Saman­tha-Jo Roth wrote. 

“Sen­ate Democ­rats are weigh­ing whether Pres­i­dent Joe Biden should use his final moments of pow­er to issue pre­emp­tive par­dons to shield those who could receive polit­i­cal ret­ri­bu­tion from Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump,” she wrote. “The con­ver­sa­tions come against the back­drop of Trump’s rhetoric on the cam­paign trail in which he’s threat­ened to seek revenge on indi­vid­u­als he con­sid­ers his polit­i­cal foes, refer­ring to them as ‘ene­mies from with­in.’”

It’s unlike­ly Biden assumed his deci­sion to break his word “as a Biden” was going to go over smooth­ly. He and the White House have been say­ing for more than a year that he had no inten­tion of putting his thumb on the scales of jus­tice to favor his son. 

He sound­ed Trumpian in his state­ment on Sun­day explain­ing his deci­sion, claim­ing that “the charges in his cas­es came about only after sev­er­al of my polit­i­cal oppo­nents in Con­gress insti­gat­ed them to attack me and oppose my elec­tion.” 

If he chose to hand out more par­dons, whether they are in favor of pro­tect­ing his for­mer oppo­nent or his Demo­c­ra­t­ic allies, he could do lit­tle more dam­age to his lega­cy, which start­ed to crum­ble after his dis­as­trous June 27 debate with Trump and may have fall­en into dis­re­pair when Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris was defeat­ed on Nov. 5 — in large part, Democ­rats say, because Biden wait­ed so long to drop out of the race. 

But throw­ing around more par­dons for unknown and uncharged crimes could back­fire. 

“I don’t know how you par­don a per­son that’s not been charged with any­thing. I don’t think that can hap­pen,” Manchin told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er.

Hunter Biden’s par­don was shock­ing­ly broad, cov­er­ing “those offens­es against the Unit­ed States which he has com­mit­ted or may have com­mit­ted or tak­en part in dur­ing the peri­od from Jan­u­ary 1, 2014, through Decem­ber 1, 2024, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to all offens­es charged or pros­e­cut­ed.” 

In the case of Trump, Biden’s par­don could be con­crete. Spe­cial coun­sel Jack Smith has moved to drop the fed­er­al cas­es pend­ing against the pres­i­dent-elect with­out prej­u­dice, so they could, con­ceiv­ably, be brought back to life in four years. 

Most Democ­rats don’t like that plan, though. Sev­er­al sen­a­tors were quick to shoot down the sug­ges­tion that Biden should offer an olive branch in the shape of a par­don to Trump. 

“It’s a ter­ri­ble idea,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D‑OR) said.

“I haven’t even con­sid­ered it,” Sen. Chris Mur­phy (D‑CT) said. 

And even if the par­doned par­ty was some­one oth­er than Trump, the mes­sage it would send, in addi­tion to the hints Biden has already made about the politi­ciza­tion of his own Depart­ment of Jus­tice, would be prob­lem­at­ic, Sen. Kirsten Gilli­brand (D‑NY) said.

“It would send a mes­sage that there’s been a trend towards polit­i­cal pros­e­cu­tions,” Gilli­brand told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er. “It’s cer­tain­ly some­thing he can con­sid­er, but it’s entire­ly his deci­sion.”

Click here to read more about Biden’s pos­si­ble future par­don plans.

New from us 

Con­gress should take back the tar­iff pow­er

Mike Lee is step­ping up for par­ents online

Rock­e­feller Broth­ers Fund spent past four years pump­ing cash into Chi­nese gov­ern­ment-linked groups

Trump’s pro-union labor sec­re­tary pick could be a pro­gres­sive dar­ling

In case you missed it

Trump might be con­sid­er­ing back­ups for Hegseth, includ­ing a for­mer foe

Anoth­er Cab­i­net pick has bowed out ear­ly

Hunter’s judge was not impressed with Joe Biden’s waf­fling

For your radar

Biden is mak­ing sev­er­al stops on his last day in Ango­la, tour­ing the Lobito Port Ter­mi­nal and Car­rin­ho Food Pro­cess­ing Fac­to­ry before tak­ing a “fam­i­ly pho­to” with African lead­ers. He will then par­tic­i­pate in the Lobito Cor­ri­dor Trans-Africa Sum­mit before trav­el­ing back to Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Har­ris has noth­ing on her pub­lic sched­ule.