Eight Senate Republicans, led by Mike Lee (R-Utah), are vowing to oppose major legislation and Biden nominees led by the Democratic Senate, following guilty verdicts for former President Donald Trump in New York.

The move could further bring legislative activity in the upper chamber to a slog. Specifically, the GOP lawmakers said they would oppose any increases to non-security related funding, Biden judicial and political nominations and “expedited consideration and passage” of Democratic legislation.

“We are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart,” the senators wrote.

Signatories of the letter include Lee and fellow Republicans J.D. Vance (Ohio), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), Eric Schmitt (Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Roger Marshall (Kan.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.). Both Vance and Rubio are thought to be on Trump’s running mate short-list.

Many of these Republicans oppose most Biden-led priorities. However, in a chamber that frequently relies on unanimous consent to move with haste, the promised move could hinder quick Senate action.

A jury in New York found Trump guilty Thursday of 34 charges of falsifying business records to cover up a payoff to a porn star.

Congressional leaders have officially invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress, capping off weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations.

The invitation, sent in a Friday letter, doesn’t state when Netanyahu will appear on Capitol Hill. But Speaker Mike Johnson has said he expects it to take place before lawmakers depart for August recess.

The letter is signed by Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

“On behalf of the bipartisan leadership of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, we would like to invite you to address a joint meeting of Congress,” the four congressional leaders wrote in the letter.

They added that “to build on our enduring relationship and to highlight America’s solidarity with Israel, we invite you to share the Israeli government’s vision for defending democracy, [combating] terror, and establishing a just and lasting peace in the region.”

The formal invite comes days after Johnson and Schumer indicated their staffs were in talks to finalize an invitation. Schumer told POLITICO at the time that “the four leaders are working it out.”

Schumer sparked GOP criticism earlier this year when he called for new elections in Israel and directly criticized Netanyahu in March. But Schumer’s office said earlier this month that he intended to sign the invite after Johnson indicated to reporters that he still hadn’t.

Netanyahu and his government have come under increasing criticism from the Biden administration and congressional Democrats over the handling of the war in Gaza, including the growing civilian death toll. Fifty eight members of the House voted against additional aid to Israel earlier this year — 37 Democrats and 21 Republicans.

Biden himself has also gotten pressure from progressives to do more to push back against Israel, including criticism for not having firmer pushback over Israel’s strike this weekend in Rafah that reportedly killed nearly 50 Palestinians. Netanyahu called the strike a “tragic accident.”

Earlier Friday, Biden said Israel has degraded Hamas’ military capabilities significantly since October, and that the militant group no longer poses a major threat to Israel, while outlining a new three-phase cease-fire proposal Israel has offered Hamas.

Sen. Joe Manchin is registering as an independent, according to a person familiar with the matter — a move that is sure to stoke speculation he could run for Senate or governor without a party affiliation this fall.
A longtime Democrat, Manchin’s decision comes ahead of a deadline for filing as an independent in West Virginia. He’ll have several more weeks to decide whether to run for his Senate seat or mount a bid for his old job as governor.

The move is no guarantee he will run for either office, however.

Manchin previously announced he would not run for reelection, a move that essentially ceded his seat to Republicans. But Democrats have held out hope he’d make a last-minute decision to run as an independent, and Friday’s move is sure to increase pressure on him to do so. Gov. Jim Justice, a Manchin rival, won the GOP primary and is heavily favored in November.

State Republicans are divided after a fierce primary in the governor’s race, which Attorney General Patrick Morrisey won. Manchin defeated Morrisey in the 2018 Senate race. Manchin is friends with the Democratic nominee Steve Williams, but he would likely be a more viable general election candidate.

Manchin will be the fourth independent in the Democratic Caucus and has long flirted with leaving a party he thinks is far too liberal. In recent interviews, he’s said his biggest fear is a future Senate that weakens the filibuster, a move he opposed last Congress.

West Virginia is one of the most conservative states in the nation, so either bid would be challenging for Manchin. But running as an independent would be easier than running as a Democrat in the deep-red state. And Manchin is a talented retail politician who has won both offices in the past.

Manchin likes to stay in the mix both nationally and regionally and may ultimately decide against running for anything. He turned down an independent presidential bid, for example, after considering one for months.

Speaker Mike Johnson said the Supreme Court should “step in” in the aftermath of guilty verdicts for former President Donald Trump on dozens of felony counts in New York.

“I do believe the Supreme Court should step in,” Johnson said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” on Friday. “I think they’ll set this straight but it’s going to take a while.”

Johnson added of the Supreme Court justices: “I know many of them personally, I think they’re deeply concerned about” faith in the U.S. justice system.

Trump must first be sentenced and then is expected to appeal his New York conviction, a process that could take months or even years to wind its way through the court system.

The comments come amid a swirl of ethics controversies for the high court, most recently due to flags displayed at properties of Justice Samuel Alito associated with the movement among some Trump supporters to overthrow Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

Alito has faced pressure to recuse himself from cases involving Jan. 6 and Trump due to the flag episodes, though he’s declined to do so. Justice Clarence Thomas has faced similar calls over the involvement of his wife, Ginni, in the events leading up to Jan. 6.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has declined a meeting request from two senior Senate Democrats amid a swirl of ethics questions surrounding the conduct of Justice Samuel Alito and, predating that flap, Justice Clarence Thomas.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Roberts said such a meeting would be “inadvisable” given the proposed format: “a meeting with leaders of only one party who have expressed an interest in matters currently pending before the Court.”

“I must respectfully decline your request for a meeting,” Roberts wrote.

Democrats have pressured Roberts to intervene in the controversies engulfing the nation’s highest court, but the chief justice’s letter amounts to a formal stiff-arm of their push for him to answer questions about the episodes. Alito has faced scrutiny over reporting in The New York Times that two of his properties displayed flags with links to those flown by protestors during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by supporters of President Donald Trump.

A defiant Alito rebuffed Democratic demands on Wednesday that he recuse himself from pending cases involving the Capitol riot and former President Donald Trump’s claims of immunity, in light of the display of the flags. Instead, he blamed his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, for the flags.

“My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not,” he wrote to Congress, denying that he or his wife knew of the ties between the gestures and groups who aimed to overthrow President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Durbin and Whitehouse’s meeting request, in that context, came as a sort of middle ground after the chair said he had no plans to call Alito or Roberts to testify before the committee, despite the wishes of other Democratic senators.

Prior to the latest Alito flap, the Judiciary Committee spent months battling with Thomas over significant lapses in his financial and gift disclosures and his ties to billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow. Thomas and Roberts held firm then in rejecting meetings and invitations to testify before the Judiciary panel.

Late last year, under pressure from Congress, the Supreme Court adopted a formal ethics code for the first time in its history — but without independent enforcement mechanisms that critics, including congressional Democrats, had pushed for.

Josh Gerstein contributed.

Sen. Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, is pushing an aggressive plan to build up the Pentagon budget, a blueprint he says is the “generational investment” needed to keep pace with worldwide threats.

As part of the sprawling plan unveiled Wednesday, the Mississippi Republican is proposing a $55 billion increase in defense spending above what President Joe Biden has requested, an amount that blows past caps on the Pentagon budget set last year under a bipartisan debt deal. Wicker aims to grow U.S. defense spending to a 5 percent share of GDP.

Wicker argues that world events, namely increasing cooperation between China and Russia, justify more money to make more missiles and air defenses, accelerate shipbuilding to grow the Navy fleet, and expand the Air Force’s aircraft inventory.

“We do not need to spend this much indefinitely — but we do need a short-term generational investment to help us prevent another world war,” Wicker argued in a New York Times op-ed outlining his plan.

“Regaining American strength will be expensive. But fighting a war — and worse, losing one — is far more costly,” he wrote. “We need to begin a national conversation today on how we achieve a peaceful, prosperous and American-led 21st century. The first step is a generational investment in the U.S. military.”

Wicker is expected to offer some form of his proposal as an amendment to the panel’s annual defense policy bill next month.

Uphill fight: The plan faces long odds. Some defense hawks are already backing the idea of exceeding budget caps, and it could pose a dilemma for some vulnerable Democrats. But any plans to bust the caps will have to navigate Democrats’ demands that any increase get a non-defense match.

The increase also busts spending caps in the debt deal. House Republicans stuck to an $895 billion defense limit in their version of the National Defense Authorization Act.

NDAA nexus: The proposal is emerging two weeks before Senate Armed Services kicks off closed-door debate on its version of the NDAA. Wicker has said he plans to propose a significant increase to the bill’s topline during the committee deliberations.

Shipbuilding: Wicker, whose state is home to Ingalls Shipbuilding’s production of amphibious warships and destroyers for the Navy, is also pressing to pour more money into shipyards to quickly build toward a 355-plus ship fleet.

His framework urged the Navy to lock in a multi-year deal to purchase several amphibious ships. And it recommends creating a large-scale industrial base program for warships. The plan also proposes boosting submarine shipyards to build three attack subs per year. And it calls for speeding up purchases of unmanned surface and undersea vessels.

Missiles: Wicker’s plan would also eliminate purchases of munitions that are below maximum manufacturing rates unless those programs are above total requirements levels. It also recommends alternative production lines to increase munition inventories in the short term.

Indo-Pacific: The proposal includes a fund to modernize Indo-Pacific Command’s command-and-control and make it easier to work with allies and partners. It also recommends “surging support for Taiwan and the Philippines — and accelerating their military modernization and buying then asymmetrical weapons.

It would also push for new nuclear-sharing agreements in the Indo-Pacific and bring U.S. tactical nuclear weapons back to the Korean Peninsula.

Aircraft: Wicker raises alarms about the Air Force inventory of aircraft, recommending buying at least 340 more planes over five years and blocking the service’s plan to scrap F-22 and F-15E fighters.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday against two attempts to use the federal courts to force Congress to comply with access requests for records about official activities.

In a pair of unanimous opinions, the same three-judge D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel turned down journalist Jason Leopold’s effort to make public more than 100 Capitol Police directives in effect at the time of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, in addition to rejecting climate change skeptic Robert Schilling’s bid to force the House to reveal details of a committee’s alleged reliance on outside advocates during an investigation into the fossil fuel industry.

However, Judge Michelle Childs said in the Schilling ruling that outside parties might still be able to use the courts to obtain some congressional records more closely focused on official acts taken by committees or the full House.

Childs, an appointee of President Joe Biden, was joined in the rulings by Judges Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins, both appointees of President Barack Obama.

While the appeals judges rejected Schilling’s claim outright, the ruling on Leopold’s case left the door open to him making a new bid for the Capitol riot-related records he sought.

Schilling’s lawyer, Matthew Hardin, noted the judges rejected the House’s argument that the Constitution’s speech or debate immunity entirely precluded this kind of lawsuit.

“This is very good news for advocates of transparency. The panel reaffirmed that the Common Law Right of Access applies to all three branches of government, and not merely to the executive branch,” Hardin told POLITICO.

“Mr. Schilling takes heart in knowing that records reflecting the ‘official decision’ of Congress — including its official decision to accept private staff, say, for purposes of targeting opponents of a particular agenda — appear to be subject to the Common Law Right of Access,” Hardin wrote.

Leopold worked for BuzzFeed News at the time he brought his suit in 2021 and now works for Bloomberg.

“The decision resolves several key legal issues in Mr. Leopold’s favor and provides him with an opportunity to refile. Mr. Leopold is reviewing his options, including whether to refile,” Leopold’s lawyer Jeffrey Light said via email.

A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the rulings.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday against two attempts to use the federal courts to force Congress to comply with access requests for records about official activities.

In a pair of unanimous opinions, the same three-judge D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel turned down journalist Jason Leopold’s effort to make public more than 100 Capitol Police directives in effect at the time of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, in addition to rejecting climate change skeptic Robert Schilling’s bid to force the House to reveal details of a committee’s alleged reliance on outside advocates during an investigation into the fossil fuel industry.

However, Judge Michelle Childs said in the Schilling ruling that outside parties might still be able to use the courts to obtain some congressional records more closely focused on official acts taken by committees or the full House.

Childs, an appointee of President Joe Biden, was joined in the rulings by Judges Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins, both appointees of President Barack Obama.

While the appeals judges rejected Schilling’s claim outright, the ruling on Leopold’s case left the door open to him making a new bid for the Capitol riot-related records he sought.

Schilling’s lawyer, Matthew Hardin, noted the judges rejected the House’s argument that the Constitution’s speech or debate immunity entirely precluded this kind of lawsuit.

“This is very good news for advocates of transparency. The panel reaffirmed that the Common Law Right of Access applies to all three branches of government, and not merely to the executive branch,” Hardin told POLITICO.

“Mr. Schilling takes heart in knowing that records reflecting the ‘official decision’ of Congress — including its official decision to accept private staff, say, for purposes of targeting opponents of a particular agenda — appear to be subject to the Common Law Right of Access,” Hardin wrote.

Leopold worked for BuzzFeed News at the time he brought his suit in 2021 and now works for Bloomberg.

“The decision resolves several key legal issues in Mr. Leopold’s favor and provides him with an opportunity to refile. Mr. Leopold is reviewing his options, including whether to refile,” Leopold’s lawyer Jeffrey Light said via email.

A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the rulings.