Senate Democrats are facing a fresh round of pressure from the left to begin taking concrete moves to spotlight the ethical controversies mounting at the Supreme Court.

They are responding with at least one step: Plans to seek unanimous consent for debate on their long-stalled legislation imposing new ethics rules on the high court.

But Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who’s previously ruled out subpoenaing Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, is already acknowledging that Republicans are prepared to object to that debate — leaving no path forward for the Supreme Court bill.

“I think I know the outcome, but we’re going to go through the exercise to make sure that both parties are on the record,” the Judiciary Chair and Majority Whip said on Tuesday.

Durbin revealed his move as several House progressives, and one leading liberal activist group, began nudging harder for the Senate to force recusals by the two conservative justices. Such moves would tee up a remarkable showdown between two branches of government, but liberals across the Capitol are starting to press harder.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the Democrats’ top Oversight and Accountability Committee member, in a brief interview. “I feel like the Department of Justice has within its arsenal the right to ask to petition the court for a writ of mandamus, to force recusal of two justices whose impartiality is reasonably questioned.”

Raskin and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) hosted a Tuesday roundtable with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) — a chief backer of the Supreme Court ethics bill — designed to spotlight what many progressives view as a conflict of interest crisis on the court.

Whitehouse used the moment to cool House Democrats’ interest in subpoenas given divided government, warning that Republican senators would be likely to get in the way of enforcing any summons to a justice.

Durbin, who declined to endorse Raskin’s proposal, described it as “kind of a reach” but said he would keep discussing it with him out of “respect” for the constitutional law professor’s expertise. He added a subtle hope that further reporting on the high court might change the political dynamics that have prevented Senate Democrats from moving forward with their 51-vote majority.

“Maybe some new evidence comes out,” Durbin said.

Previous reports in The New York Times and ProPublica have already trained harsh scrutiny on Alito and Thomas. Alito declined to recuse himself from cases related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot after reports on an upside-down American flag displayed at a family residence, as well as another flag that some associate with Christian Nationalism.

In addition, reports on Alito and Thomas’ ties to wealthy GOP donors have sparked fury on the left. This week, attention returned to the high court after the release of tapes of Alito and his wife, who were recorded by a liberal activist and documentary filmmaker posing as a conservative in order to prod them into addressing sensitive topics.

Senate Democrats’ high court ethics bill would establish more stringent rules for gift and travel disclosure, clarify recusal rules and allow lower court judges to review ethics complaints submitted by the public. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not committed to floor time to the measure, likely because it could not overcome a GOP filibuster, so Durbin’s plans to seek unanimous consent are largely symbolic.

With pivotal cases related to former President Donald Trump and Jan. 6 potentially going before the Supreme Court soon, at least one prominent progressive activist said Senate Democrats need to do more — including subpoenas.

“There’s a dangerous strain of defeatism,” Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, said in an interview. “We are baffled. This is both good policy, good government and good politics. Why not do it?”

“The minute that Durbin gets off his butt … the people will be with him. The general public does not like what’s going on the Supreme Court,” added Levin.

Instead, Democrats are placing the onus elsewhere — focusing on the doomed Supreme Court ethics bill and insisting that Chief Justice John Roberts also hold Alito and Thomas accountable.

“Chief Justice Roberts must intervene for the sake of the court, because nothing is going to happen in Congress” ahead of major new decisions on Jan. 6 and other cases, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said in an interview late last month. “And if he does rule on these cases, it will cause irreparable damage to an already damaged Supreme Court.”

Yet Roberts declined Durbin and Whitehouse’s request for a meeting on the matter. And even Whitehouse, known among his colleagues for pugnacious pursuit of judicial reform, has not sounded particularly enthusiastic in recent days about Senate Democrats making further headway in forcing the court to address its own internal ethical processes.

“I hope and pray that the time will come when the House is issuing subpoenas that are not subject to the Senate filibuster,” Whitehouse said on Tuesday.

Speaker Mike Johnson will attend the Senate GOP’s lunch on Wednesday to discuss ideas for future party-line legislation if former President Donald Trump wins in November, according to a person familiar with the plans.

Johnson is attempting to put together a package of conservative policy priorities that could — in theory — pass during a second Trump term, should Republicans win big this fall. Passing legislation through the so-called reconciliation process only requires a simple majority in the Senate, avoiding the 60 votes required to break a filibuster.

But the power of reconciliation comes with limits: Measures in the bill must be deemed relevant to the national budget, a standard that can be difficult for lawmakers to pinpoint.

Historically, issues like tax and health care reform have been ripe topics for reconciliation. Senate Democrats passed a reconciliation package last term, known as the Build Back Better Act, which included a number of climate and social policy efforts that would have otherwise failed to pass in the then-evenly divided Senate.

Any effort to pass a reconciliation package without complete GOP control of Washington next year is highly unlikely. Nonetheless, Johnson’s meeting with Republicans this week shows an intentional effort at early negotiations around any potential deal, theoretically teeing up a bill for Trump to act on quickly should he retake the White House.

Notably, Trump is also slated to meet separately with House and Senate Republicans on Thursday to discuss the party agenda. The former president’s input is likely to play a significant role in any sort of policy formations.

Punchbowl News first reported the Johnson appearance.

House Oversight Chair James Comer is urging the Justice Department to launch a sweeping investigation into the Biden family in the wake of Hunter Biden being found guilty on three felony gun charges.

“Today’s verdict is a step toward accountability but until the Department of Justice investigates everyone involved in the Bidens’ corrupt influence peddling schemes that generated over $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden family, it will be clear department officials continue to cover for the Big Guy, Joe Biden,” Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement after the verdict.

Comer’s symbolic DOJ nudge toward a broader Biden investigation comes as House Republicans are months into their own impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, which has largely focused on the business deals of Hunter Biden and other family members.

But they don’t have the votes to impeach Biden, with a swath of GOP members saying they haven’t found the sort of “smoking gun” that proves Joe Biden committed a crime or an impeachable offense.

Comer and other GOP chairs spearheading the inquiry made criminal referrals to the Justice Department earlier this month for Hunter Biden and Jim Biden, the president’s brother. The referrals are non-binding, meaning the DOJ doesn’t have to do anything with them. Republicans are hoping that if Trump wins in November, they can be revisited next year.

Congressional Democrats, plus legal representatives for Hunter and Jim Biden, quickly denounced the referrals, saying Republicans are rehashing already misconstrued closed-door testimony from the two men and were trying to find a landing place for an impeachment inquiry that has stalled.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a Washington Post op-ed before the verdict, offered an indirect rebuff of Comer’s accusation of a “cover,” arguing the department makes decisions based on facts rather than last names or party ID.

“The Justice Department makes decisions about criminal investigations based only on the facts and the law. We do not investigate people because of their last name, their political affiliation, the size of their bank account, where they come from or what they look like. We investigate and prosecute violations of federal law — nothing more, nothing less,” he wrote.

Former President Donald Trump is slated to meet with the House GOP conference Thursday, according to two Republicans with direct knowledge of the planning.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee will address members just weeks ahead of the party’s convention at a Republican-only club on Capitol Hill. Trump has locked down support from most Republican House members.

The former president is expected to have other meetings with lawmakers this week, including with Senate Republicans. Senate GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said they plan to talk about their “strategic governing agenda in 2025.”

His meeting with the full Republican conference is slated to take place 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning, though the location has yet to be announced.

It marks a critical moment for Speaker Mike Johnson, who has repeatedly leaned on his relationship with Trump to both weather attacks from his right flank and push through tough legislation in the GOP’s narrow House majority. Trump defended the GOP leader against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), when the Trump loyalist led efforts to boot Johnson from the speakership.

But Johnson is also facing some legislative squeezes on Trump’s behalf, which the former president could push in his upcoming meetings. Greene has trumpeted one in particular for weeks: Defunding special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading investigations into both Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as well as his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Johnson initially dismissed defunding Smith in an interview with POLITICO Playbook — knowing many of his centrists are not on board — but he has appeared to warm to the idea as Trump has voiced his support.

And the speaker will get more face time with Trump days later at Mar-a-Lago, along with the chair of the House GOP campaign arm, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.). The visit, first reported by Axios, comes as the party is bracing for a series of upcoming primary battles.

During a similar meeting in the past, Johnson and Hudson worked with Trump to figure out how to deal with a series of primary races, including withholding or providing endorsements as well as asking the former president to withhold attacks against those he believes have crossed him.

That meeting in March impacted races that could’ve fundamentally changed the makeup of the House, adding more hardliners that tend to cause more migraines for leadership if ultimately elected — or worse, cost them a winnable seat.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

The Justice Department is moving to neutralize lingering GOP questions about any contact between the DOJ and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on any Trump case, calling it “conspiratorial speculation.”

Carlos Uriarte, an assistant attorney general at Justice, sent a letter to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) late Monday night disclosing that the DOJ had conducted a search for any emails between any officials in DOJ leadership and Bragg’s office about an investigation into or prosecution of former President Donald Trump and found nothing.

“This is unsurprising. The District Attorney’s office is a separate entity from the Department. The Department does not supervise the work of the District Attorney’s office, does not approve its charging decisions, and does not try its cases. The Department has no control over the District Attorney, just as the District Attorney has no control over the Department. The Committee knows this,” Uriarte wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by POLITICO.

As part of the search, the DOJ also looked for any communications between an email account that belonged to Matthew Colangelo, a former Justice Department official who now works for Bragg, and the Manhattan DA’s office from his time at the DOJ and found none. The Justice Department, Uriarte added, “did not dispatch” Colangelo to Bragg’s office and “Department leadership was unaware of his work on the investigation and prosecution involving the former President until it was reported in the news.”

Asked about the DOJ letter, Russell Dye, a Judiciary spokesperson, said that committee Republicans are “weighing all options” for potential next steps.

Uriarte’s letter comes as House Republicans are in a multi-pronged standoff with both the Justice Department and Bragg. House Republicans are poised to bring a contempt resolution against Attorney General Merrick Garland to the floor Wednesday after he refused to turn over audio of former special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden. Garland did turn over the transcript, but the DOJ raised concerns that sharing the audio would negatively impact future investigations.

House Judiciary Republicans questioned Garland during testimony last week on if there was any communication between Bragg’s office and the DOJ about the Trump investigation. They also repeatedly raised why Colangelo would leave the DOJ and work for Bragg. Garland repeatedly told Republicans that the DOJ doesn’t direct Bragg’s office, and that they didn’t send Colangelo to the Manhattan DA’s office.

Uriarte, in his letter, criticized Republicans for continuing to raise the theories, which have percolated in conservative circles for months, calling them “baseless” and warning they undermined the justice system.

“Accusations of wrongdoing made without — and in fact contrary to — evidence undermine confidence in the justice system and have contributed to increased threats of violence and attacks on career law enforcement officials and prosecutors,” he wrote.

Jordan has also invited Colangelo and Bragg to testify this week before his subcommittee investigating GOP claims of “weaponization” within the federal government. The invite came one day after Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts as part of a hush money case. Bragg’s office, in a letter to Jordan on Friday, said there were scheduling conflicts with the originally pitched date of June 13, but asked them to negotiate a new date.

A split-screen of partisanship is set to dominate headlines in the House this week: Action on defense legislation that lawmakers like to find common ground on, contrasted with an attempt to hold the attorney general in contempt, which has split along party lines.

Contempt push: The House contempt effort for Merrick Garland stems from the Justice Department’s refusal to hand over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with former special counsel Robert Hur. Biden has asserted executive privilege over the audio, and DOJ says it has cooperated by handing over the transcripts of the interview.

On Tuesday morning, Garland hit back at the push in a Washington Post op-ed, denouncing what he called “baseless, personal and dangerous” attacks on the DOJ.

Both the Judiciary and Oversight panels advanced contempt resolutions last month, but the floor votes were delayed as Republicans figured out if they had the votes. At noon Tuesday, the House Rules Committee will meet to tee up the contempt votes, as well as …

NDAA action: More than 1,300 amendments have been filed to the annual National Defense Authorization Act, and the Rules Committee is charged with sorting out which of those will get a vote on the floor.

Keep an eye out for hot button amendments on abortion in the military, NATO, Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, as well as budget toplines and issues surrounding diversity, climate and transgender troops. Grab the coffees and keep the Celsius supply stocked: A late night is expected.

Primaries continue: Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina will see primary elections Tuesday. Here are some races we are watching:

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has the backing of both former President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson as she faces Catherine Templeton, who has support from former Speaker Newt Gingrich and longtime GOP South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson. With a third candidate in the race, Bill Young, there is the possibility of a runoff.

Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) faces state Rep. Adam Morgan, who chairs the state-level Freedom Caucus. Timmons is trying to counter Morgan’s support from nine of his conservative House colleagues, along with Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. Timmons has backing from Trump and Johnson, and he cut a radio ad with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Trump made a late endorsement in the Nevada Republican Senate primary of Sam Brown, who appears to have the edge over Trump’s former ambassador to Iceland, Jeff Gunter. The winner would be trying to unseat incumbent Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen (R-Nev.) in the key swing state.

A group of House Democrats is launching a new task force to respond to the possibility of former President Donald Trump’s return to office.

The group is reacting to the so-called Project 2025, a policy road map for the next presidential administration compiled by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Democrats have sought to turn the blueprint and its government overhaul proposals into a foil as campaign season ramps up.

“This stuff is going to be coming at us at lightspeed. And if we are on our heels and reacting to it, we could lose our democracy. So we’re going to need to be ready to confront it in real time. And those plans need to begin now,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), one of the lawmakers spearheading the effort.

Democrats want their task force to be a hub for members of Congress, advocacy groups and others to coordinate and respond to a future Trump administration — and to raise awareness during the campaign. Huffman said it would be composed of lawmakers from across the caucus like Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.).

Huffman stressed he believed President Joe Biden would still win reelection, but acknowledged “it would be extreme political malpractice to not be prepared for what’s coming.”

“If Trump wins, they’re telling us more clearly than anything we’ve ever seen what they’re going to do. We just need to understand it and take it seriously,” he said.

House GOP leaders are not pursuing restrictions on abortion pills in their latest funding measure, a substantial concession to swing-district Republicans ahead of Election Day.

Republicans in the chamber unveiled their spending bill Monday evening that covers federal agriculture programs and the Food and Drug Administration, as they work to pass a dozen partisan funding measures before August recess. Unlike last year, the legislation would not overturn the FDA’s decision in early 2023 that allows mifepristone abortion pills to be sold at retail pharmacies and delivered by mail.

Forgoing the mifepristone restrictions is an early sign GOP leaders are toning down their most divisive funding proposals amid pushback from centrist Republicans. That may not be uniform, however, as Speaker Mike Johnson has alsocommitted to using the spending bills to go after the Justice Department and state-level prosecutors following former President Donald Trump’s felony conviction.

Politically vulnerable GOP incumbents have been pressing their leaders to leave out the abortion pill language and other controversial social policies, which prevented House leaders from passing five of the 12 funding bills last year. And House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said he had “a frank discussion among the Cardinals” who chair the 12 funding subpanels about reconsidering the policy restrictions that derailed last year’s attempts.

“Let the chips fall where they may. But I’m hopeful that we’ll realize that some of the things that didn’t work last time probably won’t work this time,” Cole said.

It’s not totally over for conservatives who have pushed for the rider, though. The Oklahoma Republican noted that amendments offered during committee markups could add controversial policies, even if they’re not included in initial bill text.

The restrictions on abortion pills, along with steep funding cuts to agriculture programs, foiled repeated passage attempts by both then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Johnson.

Now, as they reattempt that mission ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline, House Republican leaders are hoping passage of all 12 funding bills would strengthen their negotiating stance with the Senate and the White House. Bipartisan deal-making talks will likely begin in earnest after Election Day, with both chambers expected to punt on funding that expires Sept. 30.

Rep. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has invited former President Donald Trump to speak with Senate Republicans on Thursday, according to an email sent to members on Monday.

“I believe it will be helpful to hear directly from President Trump about his plans for the summer and to also share our ideas for a strategic governing agenda in 2025,” Barrasso, the Senate GOP conference chair, wrote to Republican senators.

The meeting will occur outside the Capitol campus. It was first reported by NBC News.

Senate Republicans have plenty to coordinate on with Trump ahead of the fall campaign as the party tries to take back the White House and Senate in November. The conference is working closely with Trump in key Senate races after a 2022 cycle marked by Trump’s occasionally discordant endorsement choices, and Trump gave GOP senators a boost on Sunday by endorsing Sam Brown in Nevada’s contested primary this week.

While a tough map for Democrats this year means the Senate GOP can probably flip the chamber by beating incumbents in one of two red states, Ohio and Montana, if the party wants a larger wave it will have to ensure Trump and Republican candidates can work together in five key battlegrounds: Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. And Trump will have to help Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) prevail in their own reelections.

Not to mention that Trump is currently eyeing three sitting GOP senators as potential running mates: J.D. Vance (Ohio), Tim Scott (S.C.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.). And if he should win in November, he’ll likely have lots of sway over who will replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell next year after the Kentucky Republican steps aside from the conference’s top spot.

Which means there’s a lot on the line as the current class of Senate Republicans hold their first large-scale meeting with the former president.

And despite his presumptive presidential nomination, Trump remains a divisive figure in some corners of the party. Several GOP senators have not endorsed his White House bid, others have questioned his ability to win the general election over the past year and most rejected his attempts to overturn his loss in 2020.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a prominent member of the Judiciary Committee, is raising questions about an interview Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito gave to The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page in July.

In that interview, the conservative justice argued that “no provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.” He gave the interview shortly after the same publication allowed him to refute a then-unpublished ProPublica report that Alito accepted a luxury fishing trip to Alaska paid for by a prominent GOP donor.

“I note that the Supreme Court is the only place in all of government where issues of this nature have no place or means of investigation or resolution,” Whitehouse wrote in a letter to Alito released Monday. “So far, my questions regarding these events seem to have disappeared into a black hole of indifference.”

The latest written communication comes after Alito pointedly declined to recuse himself from pending cases involving former President Donald Trump and others related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Those recusal requests from Democrats came after multiple reports in The New York Times that Alito family residences displayed flags with links to the 2021 Capitol attack.

Whitehouse and the Judiciary panel’s chair, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), also unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Chief Justice John Roberts to discuss recent ethics concerns that have swirled around the nation’s highest court.