Jim Clyburn announced Wednesday he would step down from his assistant Democratic leader position in the House, completing Democrats’ recent leadership transition.

“I am confident that Leader Jeffries, Whip [Katherine] Clark, Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, and the entire leadership team will continue the important work of putting people over politics,” he said in a statement.

Clyburn, who’s still running for reelection, had already stepped down from his position as whip when the top generation of House Democratic leadership passed the torch in the transition to the 118th Congress. He’d opted instead to run for the newly created position of assistant Democratic leader. Former Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) initially challenged Clyburn for the spot before abandoning the bid.

Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi had also stepped down from their leadership spots at the dawn of the current Congress, though they too are running for reelection. Pelosi also didn’t seek any committee assignments this Congress.

Clyburn’s leadership departure could trigger jockeying for the under-the-radar position. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) is launching a bid to take over as assistant leader, according to a House leadership aide. Neguse, a Clyburn protege, has had a close relationship with the South Carolinian for years.

Two of the GOP’s biggest personalities on the Hill are in a war of words over the $95 billion foreign aid bill that recently passed the Senate.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) blasted Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as a “liar” on Wednesday for claiming that he’s talking to House Republicans about signing onto a Hail Mary strategy for forcing a vote on the foreign aid plan — a bill that Mullin voted against in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

“.@MattGaetzis a liar,” Mullin wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Those of us who have worked with him already know that. He should focus on his own ethics issues instead of spreading false Hill rumors.”

Mullin’s use of the term “ethics issues” is almost certainly a subtle nod to the House’s ongoing internal inquiry into allegations of sexual encounters between Gaetz and teenage girls, the subject of a federal investigation that ended without charges about a year ago. The Oklahoman hit back after Gaetz referred to Mullin, a former House member who’s close to ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, as a “neoconservative” who “didn’t have the guts to vote for” the aid package.

Gaetz’s claim that Mullin is secretly working to pass a bill he voted against appears to stem from a report in The Washington Post where Mullin described “different scenarios” to pass the bill through the House. Some interpreted that comment to mean a Democratic-led discharge petition that would circumvent GOP leadership.

Mullin rebutted the idea he was supportive of a discharge petition on Tuesday as “fake news,” saying he’d instead “spoken to @SpeakerJohnson about ways to enact President Trump’s loan ideas for foreign aid.”

There’s no love lost between Mullin and Gaetz, to put it mildly. Mullin made a series of X-rated accusations to CNN about the Florida Republican after Gaetz helped spearhead the ouster of McCarthy in October.

The since-resigned McCarthy, in remarks to reporters on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, said Gaetz was “very concerned about” the Ethics Committee probe “and wanted me to do something about it. I wouldn’t. It’d be illegal.”

Olivia Beavers contributed.

Speaker Mike Johnson is experiencing some deja vu as he tries to revive a controversial spy fight — and the second attempt is running into the same buzzsaw as the first.

Two opposing factions of the House GOP are both threatening to tank the reauthorization of a critical intelligence surveillance tool as Republicans remain locked in a long-running standoff. One side of the debate views sweeping changes as vital to Americans’ privacy rights and the other warns new limits would critically undermine national security by effectively neutering the program.

The House clash — between Republican security hawks on the Intelligence Committee and GOP privacy advocates on the Judiciary Committee — is a particularly sore point for Johnson’s leadership. He’s facing criticism from every corner about how he’s handled the spy powers fight, with members predicting the bill would be blocked if Johnson tries to bring it up for a quick vote Thursday.

“There’s provisions in there that are just problematic. It hasn’t gone through regular order. It’s a whole mess,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a member of the Intelligence Committee. “That’s why we’ll probably just vote against the rule and take it down.”

The House Rules Committee plans to meet on Wednesday to tee up the bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Both sides of the debate want votes on significant changes if it goes to the floor on Thursday.

Section 702 revolves around an authority that is intended to target foreigners abroad but has become controversial because of its ability to sweep up Americans’ information. The legislation set for consideration includes narrower changes than those preferred by the Judiciary Committee, notably forgoing strict warrant requirements related to American communications.

Privacy hawks are trying to amend the bill on the floor and add language to address two issues: Requiring a warrant before searching for Americans’ information and placing limits on the ability for data brokers to sell consumer information to law enforcement. A provision related to the latter was already tucked into the bill that leadership rolled out on Monday — which in turn has rankled the security advocates on the Intelligence Committee.

Those members argue that change is unrelated to the surveillance authority up for renewal, and opens the door for privacy hawks to offer more sweeping changes this week.

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), a close ally of House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), indicated he was aware of the counter threat to knock down the bill, but they would still push amendment votes.

“They are like: ‘We don’t really want to vote on these things,’” Davidson said about his Intelligence Committee colleagues. “I’m not asking for a guaranteed outcome on whether something is going to pass … but I am asking for a vote.”

Davidson is part of a coalition that spans Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus and their respective allies, who view getting votes on a warrant requirement and the data broker language as essential. Otherwise, they warn they would prevent the bill from even being brought up.

That could easily happen in the Rules Committee, if conservative Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) vote against bringing the bill to the floor in the panel’s Wednesday meeting. Even if it gets approved there, at full attendance it only takes four Republicans joining with Democrats to block the bill from coming up for debate on the floor.

Jordan, when asked by POLITICO if he’d support the underlying bill if the warrant amendment fails, replied: “The warrant needs to be in there. Definitely needs to be in there.”

“We have to have these amendments. Like, there’s no way we’re not going to have them,” he said, noting that he told Johnson that the Judiciary Committee should have their privacy-minded bill on the floor and then there could be an amendment vote to strike the warrant language in their legislation.

But “the speaker does what he wants,” Jordan added.

Rather, House Intelligence Committee members believe that, behind closed doors, Johnson has indicated he’d support their security-favored efforts. But he has apparently not advertised that position to the conference broadly, prompting further frustration as members view him as indecisive on the issue.

Some Republicans have also complained that they went through a working group process at the behest of leadership, only for Johnson to reopen negotiations on things that were rejected by the group.

Johnson on Tuesday defended the process and noted that Republicans will get the chance to change the bill.

“We have a great base text that’s been filed,” Johnson told reporters during a press conference. “And there’s an amendment process that’s being worked through.”

Speaker Mike Johnson won’t take the Senate-passed national security supplemental as is, insisting House Republicans will write their own legislation. Democrats are trying to plot a path around him.

Johnson in a statement late Monday dismissed the $95 billion Senate bill with aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan because it failed to include provisions to tighten border security. He said in a statement: “In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters.”

Previously, the Louisiana Republican and other conservatives had worked to kill a bipartisan border-foreign aid deal because they said it didn’t go far enough to stem the flow of migrants across the border. That compromise failed in the Senate last week, after Johnson said it was dead on arrival in the House. And legislation that has stricter border policies — like the conservative-favored H.R. 2 — would almost certainly run into Democratic opposition in the upper chamber. It all indicates that the months-long fight over foreign aid and border security still has a ways to go.

Still, a Johnson aide, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO Tuesday that Johnson won’t be “boxed” into the Senate plan. Instead, House Republicans would find their own remedy to address the national security and border issues. Johnson is facing conservative pressure to oppose any Ukraine funding and fight for H.R. 2, a border bill the House passed last year on partisan lines, with some members hinting they would seek to oust him if the GOP leader put Ukraine aid legislation on the floor.

“He’s saying the current bill won’t be processed in the House and why,” the aide said.

Meanwhile, Democrats are hoping they can box Johnson in, pushing a procedural maneuver known as a discharge petition that would allow them to force a floor vote on the Senate-passed bill. Critically, though, Democrats need a majority of House members to sign on, including a handful of House Republicans. It’s unclear if they’ll get that backing.

Every House Democrat has signed onto a shell discharge petition that could be used to force a vote as soon as it has the necessary signatures. And some Republicans have held quiet conversations with Democrats about a path forward but, so far, no Republicans have joined.

Johnson has criticized that effort, saying Tuesday afternoon: “I certainly oppose it, and I hope that it would not be considered. The House has to work its will on this. There’s a deliberative process, and we’re engaged in that and we’ll see how it goes.”

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told POLITICO last week that he was spearheading a bill with Democrats that would link foreign aid, including for Ukraine, to a border measure.

“I’m working with a few Democrats on it. It’s going to address the problem in a much more narrow fashion,” said the centrist Republican, who said they will “figure out a way” to get his measure to the floor.

Conservatives are supportive of Johnson’s moves to block the Senate-passed bill, even those who are typically critical of the GOP leader.

“The good news is that Johnson has publicly stated that we’ve got to do something on the border before we do anything like that,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said on “The John Fredericks Show” Tuesday morning.

But, the former Freedom Caucus chair was quick to note: “If it were to get to the floor, it would pass — let’s just be frank about that.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer implored Johnson to take up the legislation in a Tuesday press conference, saying “if the hard-right kills this bill, it would be an enormous gift to Vladimir Putin.” But the Senate Democrat deferred to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on how to pursue a discharge petition.

And it’s not just Democrats who want Johnson to act. Even as he embraces his right flank by refusing to take up the Senate bill, there are other corners of his conference who view more financial help for Israel and Ukraine as essential. And many of those lawmakers are sick of seeing leaders bow to conservative priorities that have no shot in a Democratic-controlled Senate.

Some Republicans have floated considering pieces of a foreign aid package separately. That would let Republicans vote for Israel aid and lean on Democrats to help pass Ukraine aid. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told POLITICO last week that he’s discussing a stand-alone bill on Ukraine military aid with a group of lawmakers.

And Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) — who led a trip last week to Ukraine to try to reiterate the United States’ support — predicted that Johnson will ultimately allow for a vote on the Senate-passed bill. Notably, Johnson’s statement did not rule out the House eventually taking it up.

“The speaker will need to bring it to the floor,” he said.

House Republicans impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, making him the first Cabinet secretary since 1876 to be impeached by the House.

A week after a first attempt that fell short and caused heartburn for GOP leadership, Mayorkas was impeached in a second vote, 214-213.

The Senate is all but guaranteed to sidestep it, with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office saying the articles will be presented after the upcoming recess with senators sworn in as jurors shortly after. Lawmakers predicted they could quickly dismiss the charges of betraying the public trust and refusing to comply with the law. The Senate is not expected to spend much time on the trial.

Three Republicans defected on the impeachment effort: Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), who all also voted “no” last week. But GOP leaders were able to revive the articles against Mayorkas with Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) return this week after treatment for blood cancer.

The vote comes on the same day that Republicans are trying to hold onto expelled Rep. George Santos’s seat. If Democrats flip the seat, that would likely have put impeaching Mayorkas just out of reach until special elections later this year.

The eventual success caps off months of Republican work to impeach Mayorkas, after they were caught flat footed last week when Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) showed up from the hospital to cast his no vote. Republicans, while acknowledging their own dysfunction, quickly tried to salvage the situation by noting they would impeach the Homeland Security chief as soon as Scalise returned.

The GOP views the border as a unifying issue in their raucous conference and an easy cudgel against Democrats as they head toward November. They’ve been building up support for the historic step for months, while also scuttling a bipartisan border plan in the Senate — raising the likelihood that legislation to address spiking migrant crossings isn’t signed into law this year.

In a statement after the vote, Speaker Mike Johnson said Mayorkas “deserves to be impeached.” “Since this Secretary refuses to do the job that the Senate confirmed him to do, the House must act,” the speaker added.

But even as GOP leaders tried to convince their colleagues to support impeaching Mayorkas, the effort wasn’t guaranteed. Last week it appeared to be on the verge of collapse as several Republicans remained on-the-fence just hours before the vote. Though leadership managed to win over nearly all of them, they still fell short because of opposition from Gallagher, Buck and McClintock, alongside full attendance from House Democrats.

Gallagher announced his plans to retire days after the vote, and Buck also plans to leave the House at the end of this term.

The GOP’s impeachment push has sparked pushback from the administration, typical GOP constitutional allies and congressional Democrats — and is already being turned against Biden-district Republicans up for reelection. In a post-vote statement, President Joe Biden said, “History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship.”

“House Republicans will be remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at our border,” DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement. “While Secretary Mayorkas was helping a group of Republican and Democratic Senators develop bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security and get needed resources for enforcement, House Republicans have wasted months with this baseless, unconstitutional impeachment.”

Gallagher, Buck and McClintock each raised concerns that the Mayorkas impeachment didn’t meet the bar laid out under the Constitution — a concern from GOP-aligned constitutional experts who publicly urged Republicans against taking the step heading into last week’s vote.

The Department of Homeland Security, in a new memo on Tuesday, also made a final push to sway Republicans against impeaching Mayorkas, writing that they should “listen to their fellow Republicans and stop wasting time on this pointless, unconstitutional impeachment.”

Senate Republican Ukraine advocates swept away a last-minute cavalcade of attacks on Monday evening, defeating a conservative filibuster of the $95 billion aid package and putting it on a glide path to clearing the chamber.

The 66-33 vote advanced the bill toward final passage, which is expected to take place by midweek, if not earlier. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has objected to moving forward more quickly, and conservative opponents have used the delay to throw the proverbial kitchen sink at the proposal.

Those attacks are taking their toll, to an extent: 39 Senate Republicans supported a standalone $40 billion Ukraine bill two years ago, a number that’s now roughly sliced in half. That reflects the sustained attacks on Ukraine by GOP opponents, including former President Donald Trump, whose verbal assaults carry more weight by the day as he marches toward the Republican nomination.

Still, those fusillades have almost certainly failed to stop passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate. There’s no such guarantee over in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson criticized the bill Monday, casting doubt on its future.

“These are chaotic times. And as a support of Ukraine, Israel and our industrial base, it’s adequate. It’s good enough,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) of the Republican support in the Senate.

It’s been roughly 14 months since Congress approved new funding for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s attacks and the latest tranche is expected to pass the Senate just ahead of the Munich Security Conference, which focuses on threats to international security.

Once a hawkish party that attacked Democrats for being weak on funding national security, now the GOP is split between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s more interventionist views and those of Trump, who said any more money to Ukraine needs to take the form of a loan. And the run-up to the vote reflected the intense tension in the Republican Party over continuing to fund Ukraine, which receives roughly $60 billion under the legislation. The rest is destined for Taiwan, Israel and humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

Ukraine opponents met late Monday evening and came out resolving to delay the bill as long as they can, even if it requires holding the Senate floor overnight. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said they will use as “much time as we can” on the Senate floor.

“We’re not helping Ukraine at this point in time. We’re fueling a bloody stalemate. It makes no sense,” Johnson said after the meeting.

Trump spent the weekend railing against the bill and said he would not defend NATO allies who did not fulfill spending commitments under the international agreement, comments which split Republicans. A group of conservative senators took to the Senate floor Monday afternoon to denounce the bill; later in the day, some joined Elon Musk on a social media channel to continue the attacks.

On the social media channel, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) questioned the spending pointedly: “This thing still has about $8 billion going directly to the Government of Ukraine. They are not choirboys.”Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH)

And in a sign of conservatives’ fervent pressure campaign to kill the package, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) argued in a Monday morning memo to his colleagues that Trump could be impeached again if he withholds Ukraine funding provided by the bill. Ukraine supporters rebuffed Vance’s argument, but it was picked up across the right-leaning media ecosystem.

“First of all, Trump has to get elected president. Second, Democrats have to get the House. And then they have to think this is the only thing they could use to impeach Donald Trump,” said retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted to convict the former president in both impeachment trials. “I can assure you that if Donald Trump becomes president and the Democrats get the House, they’ll be able to find many opportunities to impeach Donald Trump if they wish.”

Amid the crosscurrents, some Republicans were deliberating over their final vote, with some still pushing for certain amendment votes in exchange for their approval. That’s been severely complicated by Paul’s unwillingness to speed up the process, since Democrats are reluctant to allow amendments without expediting passage.

That led to some GOP senators voting against moving the bill forward. On Monday, some of them were still assessing their vote on final passage of a massive national security spending bill with no border components — sending it to an uncertain fate in the House — after the bipartisan border deal fell apart last week.

“My goal is to be a yes. But also remembering there’s another stage to this, and that’s the House of Representatives. And so we need to help them,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). “Otherwise, there’s no point in just making a point.”

Speaker Johnson made clear he cares little for the Senate bill in a statement on Monday evening. Though he rejected the Senate’s bipartisan border negotiations last week, he criticized the Senate’s bill for lacking a border component.

It’s just the latest sign of uncertainty for Ukraine aid. Johnson said “the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters. America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.”

Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.

House Republican investigators leading the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden are pressing for more details on his interview with Robert Hur as part of the special counsel’s classified documents investigation.

Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Ways & Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday, asking for any records, including recordings, related to Biden’s interview with Hur’s team. They also want classified documents identified in the report related to Ukraine.

In addition to the documents request, House Republicans are in talks with Hur to have him testify about his report, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

House Republicans are giving the Justice Department until 5 p.m. on Feb. 19 to hand over the requested materials. Otherwise, they warned, GOP lawmakers are “prepared to compel the production of this material if necessary” via a subpoena. They are also requesting any communication between the Justice Department, Biden’s personal counsel and the White House about the special counsel report.

“For our investigatory purposes, the Committees require certain records relating to Mr. Hur’s investigation and report,” the three GOP lawmakers wrote to Garland.

They added that they “require this transcript and any other records of this interview, including, but not limited to, any recordings, notes, or summaries of the interview.”

The Justice Department released Hur’s report last week, which found that criminal charges against Biden wouldn’t be warranted even if DOJ lacked an internal policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Hur’s investigation found evidence that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency,” the report states, but it didn’t “establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Congressional Republicans have also emphasized the report’s descriptions of Biden, including that he would be perceived in any court proceedings as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” Comer called last week for the Justice Department to provide access to classified documents referenced in the report, as well as release the transcript with Biden. But Monday’s letter is the first formal request for information since the report’s release.

Biden has denied that he improperly shared classified information. Hur’s report alleges that he shared it with a ghostwriter. The president and other Democrats have also publicly criticized Hur’s descriptions of Biden’s memory.

Richard Sauber, a special counsel to the president, and Bob Bauer, Biden’s personal counsel, sent a joint letter to Hur last week asking that he revise his descriptions of Biden’s memory “so that they are stated in a manner that is within the bounds of your expertise and remit.”

In addition to the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden — which has largely focused on the business deals of his family members, but also delved into his handling of classified documents and the years-long federal investigation into Hunter Biden — Republicans said in their letter on Monday that they also needed the information for a separate investigation into the federal investigation of former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents.

Republicans have tried to draw an apples-to-apples comparison of Biden’s and Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, arguing that the Justice Department’s decision not to charge Biden but to pursue charges against Trump is an example of a politicized justice system.

But Hur’s report draws a contrast between the two cases, noting that Trump allegedly refused to return classified documents for months while Biden turned in the classified documents and cooperated with the investigation.