Senate Democrats are circulating a memo claiming that President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, improperly claimed nearly $2 million in tax losses and owes nearly $1 million in taxes related to his hedge fund — providing ready ammunition for them as Bessent goes before the Finance Committee on Thursday.

The memo obtained by POLITICO, which was prepared by Finance Committee staff under ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), alleges Bessent should have paid $910,182 in taxes for income he made through his hedge fund, the Key Square Group, from 2021 through 2023. Bessent was able to avoid that income because he claimed he was a “limited partner” not making decisions for Key Square, the memo says.

Democratic staff on the Finance Committee are arguing that Bessent was clearly actively engaged in decisions for the fund.

The memo also highlights losses Bessent claimed from income related to All Seasons Press, a conservative book publishing house that has minted books from authors including former Trump aide Peter Navarro, as well as a glowing biography of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson. The memo argues that Bessent didn’t properly substantiate $1,939,296 in losses, citing ASP records indicating that Bessent wasn’t actively involved in the publishing house’s businesses.

A spokesperson for the Trump transition called the claims “meritless.”

“Scott Bessent has paid his taxes. After providing thousands of pages of records through an exhaustive process, neither Senator Wyden nor his staff are able to provide any evidence that Scott violated the Internal Revenue Code,” the spokesperson said.

“Instead, they have resorted to a subjective interpretation of the tax code, including taking positions that are contrary to the to the views of the broad majority of tax professionals, accountants and lawyers, in an effort to mislead the public. “

The memo is sure to tee up a barrage of questions from Finance Committee Democrats about Bessent’s taxes at his nomination hearing Thursday. And the memo will allow Wyden to portray Bessent as out of touch with the Treasury Department and IRS that he would lead, which under President Joe Biden’s administration have been laser-focused on closing tax dodges used by the ultra-wealthy.

It’s unlikely, though, to put a dent in his support from Republicans, who have quickly coalesced behind the longtime hedge fund manager, or endanger Bessent’s ultimate path to confirmation — especially with Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) pledging to move his nomination quickly.

“Mr. Bessent has followed the law and provided thousands of pages of documentation as part of the committee’s rigorous vetting process,” said Mandi Critchfield, Crapo’s spokesperson, in response to the memo.

In addition to potential problems with his hedge fund income and his ASP investment, the memo also called out a $500,000 deduction Bessent took on his 2023 returns for “bad debt.” The memo argues Bessent provided scant explanation to prove the deduction wasn’t in fact a gift or a personal loan.

Democratic staff are also pointing out that Bessent likely used a work-around to circumvent a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, claiming $40,000 in such write-offs for a cooperative he had an investment in.

In several of the instances, Democratic staff suggested that Bessent amend his tax returns, but he declined to do so, according to the memo. In one case, Bessent said he would consider amending his returns if tax law verdicts relevant to his “limited partnership” status in his hedge fund were brought before higher courts.

Russell Vought wouldn’t commit to having the federal government spend all the money Congress approves.

The issue came up during his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, where he testified before lawmakers in pursuit of a second tour as White House budget director for President-elect Donald Trump.

Vought famously froze aid to Ukraine and Puerto Rico the first time he ran the Office of Management and Budget during the first Trump administration. Now that Trump is claiming so-called “impoundment” law is unconstitutional, senators in both parties are eager to hear Vought promise to spend federal cash as Congress intends.

Instead, Vought reiterated to senators on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that Trump believes presidents can spend less than Congress prescribes.

During his first confirmation hearing to be Trump’s nominee to head OMB, senators pressed Vought on whether he believes the impoundment law protecting Congress’ “power of the purse” should be upheld.

“As you know, the president has run on that issue,” Vought said. “He believes it’s unconstitutional. For 200 years, presidents had the ability to spend less than an appropriation if they could do it for less, and we have seen the extent to which this law has contributed to waste, fraud and abuse.”

Vought repeatedly declined to elaborate on how he would approach the issue if confirmed to head the budget office.

“I’m giving you my commitment to uphold the law of the land,” he told senators, adding that Trump’s advisers “will be developing our approach to this issue and strategy once his administration is in office.”

Vought ultimately billed himself as a Trump devotee committed to fulfilling the wishes of the president-elect.

“I’m here for the president’s agenda,” he said. “And my view of OMB is that it’s a very important office — it touches all aspects of the federal government — and that it is important for the president to have someone in this role that wants to accomplish his agenda and not their own personal agenda. That’s what I’m known for, and that’s what I’ll continue to be, if confirmed.”

He also said he disagrees with the opinions of federal watchdogs that concluded that the first Trump administration violated the law by withholding aid, including by freezing assistance to Ukraine.

“We followed the law consistently, and we will continue to do so,” Vought said Wednesday.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) questioned how lawmakers will be able to broker “good faith” bipartisan agreements on government funding if the incoming Trump administration disregards the will of Congress.

“How do we negotiate with somebody who says, ‘I’m just going to do what I want. To hell with the Constitution?’” Peters asked.

Even some Republican senators have said they are worried Trump will usurp Congress’ authority. “The power of the purse is Congress,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said during Vought’s confirmation hearing.

“I think if we appropriate something for a cause, that’s where it’s supposed to go,” Paul said. “And that will still be my position.”

Speaker Mike Johnson has removed Rep. Mike Turner as chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, according to three people familiar with the decision.

Conservative hard-liners in the House and other Republicans loyal to President-elect Donald Trump have been pressing Johnson for months to remove the Ohio Republican.

First named to lead committee Republicans in 2022 by then-Leader Kevin McCarthy, Turner has made many enemies over his handling of key intelligence matters, including a major internal battle over renewing certain surveillance authorities last year.

He has also been an outspoken advocate for Ukraine funding and other hawkish national security stances.

Still, the decision blindsided many members who remain loyal to Turner, including some current Intelligence panel members. Unlike most House panels, the selection of the Intel chairman is solely at the speaker’s discretion.

Johnson cited Trump as a reason for the ouster when the speaker met with Turner Wednesday night, according to a person familiar with the conversation who was granted anonymity to describe it.

Trump allies have raised concerns about Turner’s support for Ukraine aide and his role in the spy-powers chaos. Turner later told CBS News that Johnson pointed to “concerns from Mar-a-Lago” as the reason for the decision.

Turner’s handling of the surveillance bill — renewing so-called Section 702 powers — sparked unrest among ultraconservatives who argued he tried to strong-arm them into backing the legislation by raising generic warnings of national security concerns.

Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel, spoke to reporters shortly after the news broke. He had maintained a cordial relationship with Turner, who had pledged to undertake a bipartisan reset on the panel when ascending to the top Republican spot in 2022. His predecessor, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), was a fierce Trump loyalist who had continually clashed with then-Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

“I have ice in my spine right now, because that’ll totally change the dynamic of oversight,” Himes said of Turner’s removal. He added, “I’m sure that Mike lost some friends” over his role in preserving U.S. surveillance powers last year.

Watch: Senators grill Pam Bondi at attorney general confirmation hearing

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With wildfires still burning in Southern California, congressional Republicans are getting more detailed about how they plan to handle the politically sensitive topic of delivering potentially tens of billions of dollars of federal disaster aid to the largely Democratic area.

Strings, they are making clear, will be attached.

Some House Republicans who met with President-elect Donald Trump this past weekend floated using the funding as a bargaining chip in debt-limit negotiations with Democrats. And there is an emerging consensus that some unspecified policy changes should be included to prevent future wildfires.

“We don’t play politics with disaster aid,” Speaker Mike Johnson said at a POLITICO Live event Tuesday. “But there were policy decisions that were made in California at the state and local level, by all appearances, that made this exponentially worse, and so those are things that have to be factored in with regard to the level of aid and whether there are conditions upon that.”

Johnson’s posture was echoed by other congressional Republicans — including some from disaster-prone states who have typically resisted turning federal assistance into a political football.

“I believe that if a state is so grossly mismanaged that the initial disaster is not quickly contained, then we have a responsibility to do common-sense things,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.).

“Rebuild maybe so that the conditions are such that the threat from fire is lessened so that we won’t have to do it again,” added Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.).

Republicans have pointed to how Democrats pursued a “Build Back Better” approach to massive infrastructure and climate bills that put similar strings on federal funding to improve climate resilience. President Joe Biden issued executive orders mandating “climate-smart infrastructure.”

But critics say that emergency disaster aid is another thing entirely, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing back on the idea.

“That’s just one of the most cruel and ignorant things you could possibly say, especially in this moment,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), one of many incensed Democrats. “You don’t condition it. We didn’t do that for Louisiana; we didn’t do that for Florida. I’m hoping that that was just a dumb thing that [Johnson] said, which on reflection won’t go any further.”

Some Republicans in closest proximity to recent disasters are striking a similar tone.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who saw parts of his state ravaged by Hurricane Helene, told reporters this week conditioning aid is “not a good thing to do.” And Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.), who represents an Orange County district with similar terrain to where the Los Angeles fires have spread, said any debate about policies should come later.

“We need to get the aid to Southern California communities as soon as possible,” Kim said Wednesday. “The conditions … is not something that we need to be focused on right now.”

Any aid package is still a ways off, with fire crews still working to extinguish the Los Angeles area fires and damage estimates even further off. Republican leaders have floated including the disaster aid into an expected government funding package that will come together in March, when funding is set to lapse.

The debt ceiling will also need to get raised in the coming months, sparking the suggestion that disaster money could serve as a sweetener to get Democratic votes for that politically unsavory task. “It’s going to be very difficult to do something with only Republican votes,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said about the borrowing limit.

That kind of horse-trading would represent a new frontier in the politicization of the debt ceiling, and former Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who helped push through emergency aid requests after the 9/11 terror attacks and Superstorm Sandy in 2012, said that would be a bad idea.

“You’re playing games with Americans’ solvency, our credit rating, and it’s just never gone anywhere,” he said. “We have enough real issues to address, and you can’t be tying — to me — anything and everything to the debt ceiling.”

King and other Republicans have been more open to adding policy strings to any aid requests, but they have been vague on what exactly those conditions might entail. Donalds cited “forestry management” and “building out reservoir systems that they should have built 60 years ago.”

“Let’s just mitigate the issues,” he said, “so that we’re not spending future money that is unnecessarily significant because they won’t do sound policy which is done in virtually every other state in the country.”

Those policy prescriptions, however, likely wouldn’t have much bearing on preventing a repeat of what LA has faced over the past week. The fires are in urban areas, not the forests that have been a target of Trump’s ire, and the city’s fire hydrant issues aren’t linked to the state’s water management system.

Johnson, who represents a district in hurricane-prone Louisiana, acknowledged on Tuesday that tying disaster funding to policy changes is a “brand new idea” but one, he argued, that is justified “so that we can properly balance the interests of the American people and our financial condition right now.”

But Californians watching their neighbors lose their homes — and in some cases, their lives — have little appetite for lectures about the national debt or forest management.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Santa Barbara-area Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.). “It’s a fucking shame, and it speaks to the values of of my colleagues on the other side that want to play politics with those that are hurting right now and being impacted by a natural disaster.”

Emily Ngo contributed to this report.

If you closed your eyes, you might’ve thought Kash Patel was in the witness chair.

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats spent Wednesday pummeling President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to become FBI director at a confirmation hearing for his prospective boss: attorney general nominee Pam Bondi.

Ranking member Dick Durbin of Illinois raised Patel’s commentary about QAnon conspiracy theories. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota worried about Patel’s comments about targeting the media. Several Democratic senators expressed concern about his purported “enemies list” of people he believes should be investigated or prosecuted.

It all amounted to signs that Democrats view Patel — a polarizing MAGA loyalist who served in Trump’s first administration— as an easier target than Bondi, who seems to be on a glide path to confirmation.

Democrats have widely conceded they will save their energy fighting other of Trump’s more controversial nominees than they will Bondi, who they appear to consider qualified as a former Florida attorney general. Some Democrats even thanked the nominee for productive conversations about bipartisan issues, such as combating fentanyl addiction and human trafficking.

“If they’re asking about Kash Patel, it must be going pretty well,” quipped Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The fixation on Patel by Democrats became clear early in Bondi’s confirmation hearing and remained consistent throughout her nearly 6 hours in front of the Judiciary Committee.

“My concern, on the basis of statements that President-elect Trump has made, is that he does identify people as political enemies … and there may come a day where there is pressure on you,” said Vermont Sen. Peter Welch. “I’m just going to express my hope that … when it comes to the constitution or pressure from a higher official, you’re going to choose the constitution.”

Bondi gave a full-throated endorsement of Patel, arguing he was the “right person” for the job and well-qualified. She also declined to defend or criticize his past statements, saying she was unfamiliar with them and would let him speak to them at his own confirmation hearing.

“I don’t believe he has an enemies list. He made a quote on TV that I have not heard,” Bondi said, deftly avoiding discussion of a book Patel wrote containing a long list of “Government Gangsters.”

At times, Bondi sought to remind the committee, gingerly, that she would be Patel’s superior. “Mr. Patel would fall under me and the Department of Justice and I will ensure that all laws are followed — and so will he.”

When Durbin raised Patel’s agreement with aspects of QAnon’s agenda, Bondi seemed to express relief that he would soon be in the hot seat instead of her.

“I look forward to hearing his testimony about QAnon in front of this committee,” Bondi said.

Bondi, a friend and ally of Trump for years, served as Trump’s lawyer during his first impeachment trial and assisted Rudy Guiliani in efforts to block Joe Biden’s Pennsylvania win in the 2020 election. Democratic Senators pressed Bondi on whether she believed Biden won that election, a question she repeatedly sidestepped. Bondi also declined to answer whether she would prosecute Jack Smith, the special prosecutor overseeing investigations into Trump, though she repeatedly emphasized she would be guided by facts, not politics.

In her remarks, Bondi vowed the Department of Justice would not pursue political investigations, despite Trump’s repeated calls for some of his staunchest adversaries to face prosecution.

“The partisanship, the weaponization will be gone,” Bondi said. “America must have one tier of justice for all.”

At the same time, Bondi tangled with some of Trump’s harshest critics on the committee. Her combativeness sometimes crossed lines that pending nominees rarely cross, such as when she mentioned California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff’s censure by the House for his handling of Trump-related investigations.

Schiff, a longtime representative, was elected to the Senate last year and is now serving on the Judiciary Committee.

When Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse went over his allotted time, Bondi joked that she’d like that time taken away from one of her toughest interlocutors. “Can we take a minute off Sen. Schiff?” she asked, puzzling Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, the Senate Judiciary Chair, who didn’t immediately pick up on the joke.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Bondi seemed to be trying to avoid saying anything that would provoke Trump, which sometimes complicated her ability to answer simple questions.

“She very artfully dodged questions about whether Pres. Trump lost the 2020 election, which clearly is designed for an audience of one–that’s Donald Trump,” Blumenthal told reporters toward the end of Wednesday’s hearing. “He knows she’s here. She knows he’s watching. And I think that audience is clearly a presence in the room.”