WASHINGTON (AP) - The new Republican-led Congress lined up to be sworn in Tuesday, facing questions about a secretive move to gut an independent ethics board that drew criticism from President-elect Donald Trump over the priorities of GOP leaders.
Trump, who takes office later this month, challenged the decision to immediately weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics, arguing that tax reform and health care are more important.
“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority,” Trump asked over Twitter the morning after the surprise move by the House GOP.
His remarks came just before members of the 115th Congress were to be sworn in, with Republicans determined to dismantle eight years of President Barack Obama’s Democratic policies.
The first and biggest target is Obama’s signature health care law, which Republicans have long sought to repeal and have blamed as a primary cause for a lackluster economic recovery. Trump encouraged a wholesale overhaul of the system, tweeting hours before the new Congress convened, “Obamacare just doesn’t work,” is unaffordable “and, it is lousy health care.”
Majority Republicans also are targeting decades-old programs that millions of Americans rely on every day, such as Social Security and Medicare as they seek to shrink both the size of the federal budget and the bureaucracy in Washington.
“We have a lot to do - and a lot to undo,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a letter to fellow Republicans.
There were signs of Republican-on-Republican drama even before the new Congress officially opened. House Republicans on Monday night voted to defy their leaders and gut the chamber’s independent ethics panel created in 2008 to probe charges of lawmaker misconduct after several corruption scandals sent members to prison.
Lawmakers would have the final say on their colleagues under the change approved 119-74 over arguments from House Speaker Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other GOP leaders.
Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, argued against the unilateral rules change Monday night, but he issued a statement Tuesday downplaying the change and insisting that the so-called OCE still would operate independently though under the oversight of the members-only House Ethics Committee.
“All members of Congress are required to earn the public’s trust every single day, and this House will hold members accountable to the people,” Ryan said.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer suggested Tuesday that the president-elect’s concerns regarding the House action focused more on timing than substance.
“It’s not a question of strengthening or weakening, it’s a question of priorities,” Spicer told reporters. He said Vice President-elect Mike Pence “equally shares” Trump’s concerns about the House GOP prioritizing actions against the ethics office.
Democrats will try to block the far-reaching conservative agenda by swaying public opinion and using the power they have in the Senate to filibuster legislation. But that strategy has its political limitations. Twenty-three Senate Democrats are up for re-election in 2018, including 10 from states won by Trump, and they could break ranks and side with the GOP.
“What we will always do is hold the president-elect and his Republican colleagues in Congress accountable,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in prepared remarks Tuesday. “We will be a caucus that works to make sure the president-elect keeps his commitment to truly make America great, in its finest sense and tradition.”
Obama plans a rare trip to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with congressional Democrats and discuss strategy for saving the health care law. Mike Pence will meet with Republicans.
The first week of the new Congress will be a preview of the hectic pace planned by Republicans.
The GOP’s proposal to change the ethics process is part of a rules package that also would give GOP leaders the tools to punish lawmakers if there is a repeat of the Democratic sit-in last summer over gun control.
Votes also are expected on resolutions to denounce the United Nations for condemning the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Republicans blasted the Obama administration for refusing to veto the decision. Ryan pledged “to reverse the damage done by this administration, and rebuild our alliance with Israel.”
James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is to testify Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee on an intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. election by hacking into Democratic email accounts. Allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. political process will be examined by individual congressional committees, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has rejected a bipartisan call for a special, high-profile select panel to investigate.
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Associated Press writer Julie Pace contributed to this report.
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