Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are urging the Justice Department to abandon arguments that the government must refund thousands of dollars in restitution payments to members of the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“We condemn the Justice Department’s position that the federal government should financially reward January 6 insurrectionists who ransacked the Capitol, attacked law enforcement officers, and threatened the lives of those who serve here,” the senators wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“The roughly $400,000 received in restitution is little justice for the $3 million’s worth of damage done to the Capitol, the injuries sustained by Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers serving on that day, and the terror inflicted on those trapped inside during the attack,” they wrote. “To take the position that January 6 insurrectionists should now receive refunds is unacceptable.”

The letter is led by Sens. Alex Padilla of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Judiciary Democrat. Sens. Peter Welch of Vermont, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Adam Schiff of California, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Jeff Merkley of Oregon signed on as well.

It comes weeks after POLITICO reported that federal prosecutors had begun advocating for the return of restitution payments made by Jan. 6 defendants whose convictions were abandoned shortly after President Donald Trump issued blanket clemency for those who attacked the Capitol.

Those refunds, the prosecutors said, should go to defendants whose cases were on appeal at the time of Trump’s pardons. That’s because criminal convictions are not technically final until appeals are concluded — and once the Trump administration abandoned their cases, the appeals became moot.

The House side of the Capitol complex is getting a major overhaul of its restaurants, with vendor Sodexo out after a 10-year run.

Beginning in August, Metz Culinary Management will take over, bringing a slew of new eateries with it, according to an email sent to staffers — with online ordering available at each location.

Construction will start that month, but “rest assured that Members and staff will still have options for grabbing breakfast, lunch and coffee throughout the construction process,” the memo continues.

There has been a long push for expanded brand-name food options as Sodexo’s generic cafeteria options, combined with low staffing levels, drew complaints from lawmakers and staff.

The changes come after two major renovations, with Dunkin’ being closed for an extended period of time and &Pizza, which shuttered last August, to be replaced by a renovated coffee shop.

“The incoming vendors represent a broad range of food service operators who will deliver diverse and popular food options,” according to the email from the office of the chief administrative officer to staffers.

The most controversial move appears to be that Starbucks will replace Dunkin’ in the Longworth House Office Building. The impending demise of Dunkin’ sent shockwaves through the offices of the Massachusetts delegation. (The state is, after all, where the coffee-and-doughnut institution began.) Massachusetts Rep. Lori Trahan’s deputy chief of staff jokingly decried the switch as a “hostile and political attack.”

The move also frustrated lobbyists who frequent Dunkin’.

“There’s plenty broken in Congress but the food options — especially the Dunkin — aren’t it,” one health care lobbyist texted.

Panera Bread will replace Au Bon Pain in the Cannon House Office Building, and acai bowl joint Freshens will replace Jamba Juice in Longworth. Jimmy John’s will replace Subway in Rayburn, with PX Tacos and Java House replacing the current Common Grounds coffee shop in that building. Steak ‘n Shake will leave Rayburn in favor of CHA Street Food, an “American-influenced Asian” restaurant.

In addition, fast-casual Mexican joint Qdoba will be added to the Ford House Office Building, and Black Crown Collective will also take over the Common Grounds coffee cart location.

Other changes include in-house catering being taken over by Trade Center Management Associates and Monumental Vending Inc. taking control of micro-store and vending locations.

Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and three other Democratic senators are urging the IRS’s watchdog to investigate whether the Trump administration is illegally pressuring the agency to strip Harvard of its tax exemption.

The request from Schumer and Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was first reported by POLITICO less than two hours before President Donald Trump announced he would proceed with revoking Harvard’s exemption.

“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Ahead of the announcement, the Democrats noted that Trump had openly called into question Harvard’s tax exemption — delivering the kind of pressure, they said, that runs afoul of post-Watergate laws that make it illegal for government officials to push the IRS to audit or investigate individual taxpayers.

The senators wrote to Treasury’s acting inspector general for tax administration that it’s “unconscionable that the IRS would become a weapon of the Trump Administration to extort its perceived enemies, but the actions of the President and his operatives have now made this fear a reality.”

In addition to asking for an investigation into the Harvard threats, Democrats want the watchdog to hand over information about whether the IRS has faced pressure from Trump or other administration officials to revoke the tax exempt status of other institutions besides Harvard.

Trump has criticized elite schools for a variety of reasons, including not doing more to rein in antisemitism and for their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

The president specifically asked on social media last month whether Harvard “should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity.”

The IRS reportedly started looking into that possibility shortly thereafter, though the White House has said that the president wouldn’t play any role in any investigation from the tax agency into Harvard.

Investigations into a nonprofit’s tax exemption frequently take years, and Schumer and the other senators noted that Harvard had the resources to fight back against just such a challenge.

But the Democrats also worried that smaller nonprofits would be much more vulnerable if they found themselves in the same situation.

“Church groups, hospitals, health clinics, or food banks could be next,” Schumer, Markey, Warren and Wyden wrote. “If the President is able to successfully target Harvard’s tax-exemption, anyone could be next.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Hill Republicans are delivering a flurry of rare rebukes of the Trump administration, in the latest sign that the president doesn’t have complete control over the GOP governing trifecta.

First, Speaker Mike Johnson split with the White House over making steep Medicaid cuts to fund the GOP’s megabill. The speaker told POLITICO Thursday he’s “not a big fan” of the White House’s alternative proposal: slash drug costs by pursuing a “one favored nation” policy, which would link certain government payments for pharmaceuticals to the lower prices paid abroad.

That schism comes as House GOP leaders are furiously looking for ways to pay for their party-line package that don’t involve cutting Medicaid benefits — per President Donald Trump’s wishes — or a popular food-assistance program. Struggles to reach consensus on both prompted Republicans to hold off scheduling the Energy and Commerce and Agriculture markups they hoped to hold next week to advance portions of the broader bill.

Elsewhere Thursday, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole was showing impatience with the White House, which is due to send over a preliminary “skinny budget” later Friday of broad funding targets but still needs to transmit a full budget request later this month. The president is not the “commander” of Congress, the Oklahoma Republican told reporters, as GOP appropriators grow antsy for input from the administration so they can start writing the 12 annual funding bills.

And across the Capitol, Republican senators displayed unusual public discomfort with one of Trump’s nominees: Ed Martin for U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who has in the past defended Jan. 6 rioters. Some Republicans refused to say whether they would vote for him. That includes a reliable leadership ally, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who said this week: “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Other Republicans are waiting to see if the White House pulls the plug on Martin’s nomination before they’re forced to vote or otherwise take a position on it.

These fissures, like many we’ve seen before, are unlikely to last. But the drips of GOP pushback are a notable glimpse of how Republicans are trying to retain a semblance of their autonomy in the Trump era.

What else we’re watching:

– Waltz back in the hot seat: Trump nominated embattled ex-national security adviser Mike Waltz to serve as U.N. ambassador on Thursday — and in doing so, Trump is setting up the former representative for a tough confirmation hearing that will likely also bring heat back onto Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. It also could create another conference-wrangling challenge for Majority Leader John Thune.

– Valadao’s Medicaid machinations: House Republican moderates are working behind the scenes to rein in the conference’s ambitions to slash Medicaid. And Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), who runs the centrist-oriented Republican Governance Group, is behind the effort. He has spent the last several weeks in near-constant communication with colleagues, which includes weekly meetings with the chairs of key ideological caucuses across the GOP conference and an ongoing text chat with nearly a dozen members.

– The next big markup: House Natural Resources published its portion of the GOP reconciliation bill Thursday night, going well beyond its $1 billion deficit reduction target by mandating more frequent oil and gas lease sales and speeding permit approvals for energy projects. The committee plans to mark up the legislation Tuesday that would reduce the deficit by $15 billion, according to committee aides. It would also pull back small parts of funding from the climate law known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

James Bikales, Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill and James Siegel contributed to this report.

President Trump’s pick to be Washington’s top prosecutor appears to be in trouble with Senate Republicans.

No GOP senator has said they will oppose Ed Martin to be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, a spot he currently fills in an acting capacity. But several are publicly raising concerns or refusing to say if they will vote for him — an unusual posture for senators who have been largely deferential to Trump’s nominees.

“I’m hearing that at least a couple members of the [Senate Judiciary] Committee have expressed some concerns about him,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is not a member of the panel.

The Judiciary Committee won’t hold a hearing on Martin’s nomination, in line with the panel’s precedent for U.S. attorney picks. Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a brief interview this week that he hasn’t yet determined when to schedule a vote to advance Martin, noting that members want to meet with him and that the committee is working through his responses to hundreds of submitted questions.

It’s not clear that Martin will be able to get through the committee, which is split 12-10 — meaning opposition from one GOP senator would be enough to deadlock the panel. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of the most vulnerable members up for reelection in 2026, expressed concerns over his previous comments minimizing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

“I’ll be meeting with him,” Tillis said. “We’ve just got to be very careful because this place suddenly becomes a target if we feel like we have a prosecutor who’s not inclined to prosecute those kinds of cases. So I just need to get comfortable.”

Asked Thursday if he thought Martin had the votes, Thune said “he’s got out of the committee first, so we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” If the panel deadlocks, Thune could still try to get Martin’s nomination to the floor, but it wouldn’t bode well for his chances of confirmation.

Senate Republicans haven’t formally rejected any of Trump’s nominees so far, and some hinted this week they were waiting to see if they would be forced to vote on him or if the White House would pull the nomination given the potential opposition. Given their 53-seat majority, four Senate Republicans would need to vote against him along with every Democrat and independent.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a leadership adviser who is on the Judiciary Committee, declined on Thursday to say if he would vote for Martin, adding, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Murkowski said she did not currently have a meeting scheduled with Martin, but that “if his nomination seems to be moving forward and it was clear that I was going to be in a position where I would have to vote on the floor — yeah, I would want to meet him.”

Martin has previously been critical of or called for primary challenges against some of the same Senate Republicans who now hold the fate of his nomination in their hands. Among the senators Martin has previously targeted are Susan Collins of Maine and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who would both likely be key votes if he gets to the floor.

But it’s his previous comments and actions related to Jan. 6 that have sparked the most public heartburn among GOP senators, including from Murkowski and Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah). Martin backed the “stop the steal” movement in the wake of the 2020 election, defended Jan. 6 rioters and has launched an investigation into the Justice Department’s charges against some of those who participated in the riot.

Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.

A top aide to Rep. Jerry Nadler reminded fellow Democratic staffers to let each other know when their bosses sign on to bills after several lawmakers removed themselves as cosponsors from Rep. Shri Thanedar’s impeachment resolution targeting President Donald Trump.

“Members can walk away with different impressions of a conversation, and a quick check-in with staff can go a long way in avoiding confusion,” the aide, Andrew Heineman, wrote in an Thursday email to all Democratic legislative directors obtained by POLITICO. “I don’t think any of us want to learn that their boss was added to a bill that’s been introduced from a Google Alert.”

Thanedar (D-Mich.) introduced a resolution Monday to impeach Trump with four Democrats listed as cosponsors: Nadler of New York, plus Reps. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Robin Kelly of Illinois and Kweisi Mfume of Maryland. All four have since withdrawn as cosponsors and implied that they were mistakenly added to the legislation after conversations with Thanedar.

Thanedar’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“The Congresswoman was under the impression that the resolution was drafted and reviewed by experts from the House Judiciary Committee,” Kelly’s spokesperson said.

A Mfume spokesperson said he removed himself “because he was made aware it was not cleared by Democratic leadership and not fully vetted legally — and he preferred to err on the side of caution.”

Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas has started pitching fellow Democrats on a run for the party’s top Oversight Committee position, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Crockett’s entreaties — playing out in phone calls, text messages and floor conversations — mark the beginning of a contested race to succeed Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) as Oversight’s ranking member. Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts is also seeking the job, though Connolly — who announced plans to step aside after suffering a recurrence of esophageal cancer — has not yet formally done so.

Crockett has told other lawmakers that she’s “made for the moment,” the people said, an apparent reference to the desire among Democratic voters for more forceful resistance to President Donald Trump.

She told POLITICO in a text message that, while there isn’t a vacancy, “knowing that Rep Connolly doesn’t plan to seek re-election & knowing that our oversight powers are broad, I’m ready to shine a light on the very dark things taking place in our country under this administration.”

She added, “I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I’m not interested in leading our investigative body while also communicating & educating the country on our findings.”

Semafor first reported that Crockett intended to seek the top Oversight post.

Crockett could be part of a crowded field of younger progressive Democrats who seek the job, including Reps. Robert Garcia of California, Ro Khanna of California and Maxwell Frost of Florida.

But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York could clear the field if she chooses to run. She lost to Connolly when she ran for the Oversight job last year and has since said she’s “weighing” a bid to run.

Congressional Republicans are rushing to advance the crown jewel of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda — a sweeping tax, energy and border package that they hope will be a boon to businesses and offset the tariff-induced economic turmoil of recent weeks.

But financial firms are watching warily as they lobby lawmakers not to turn Wall Street into a pay-for in the reconciliation package.

A variety of proposals that could eliminate tax breaks used by financial institutions are on the table as Republicans look to pay for tax cuts that Trump has promised. The coming weeks are poised to test GOP lawmakers’ willingness to defy some of their traditional allies in the business world to deliver the “one big, beautiful bill” Trump wants.

The House Financial Services Committee — which oversees Wall Street and its regulators — voted along party lines late Wednesday to approve its portion of the reconciliation package after a nine-hour markup. The legislation, which will be wrapped into the broader reconciliation package, would slash the amount of funding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can get by almost 60 percent and fold the U.S.’s top audit watchdog, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, into the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Democrats on the panel threw up procedural hurdles to slow the meeting down and offered dozens of amendments that Republicans voted down.

Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said he expects the savings produced by the legislation to exceed the $1 billion in cuts that the panel was required to produce by a budget resolution adopted by both chambers of Congress. But those savings remain a small fraction of what Republicans need to produce to pay for the Trump tax cuts. All eyes are on Congress’ tax-writing committees — House Ways and Means and Senate Finance — which are considering an array of more controversial savings proposals.

Several targets that could touch financial services firms are on the table. Tax writers are expected to release an initial proposal in the coming weeks, but the dynamics could change as the reconciliation bill moves forward and lawmakers look for additional savings.

Most controversially, the Ways and Means panel is weighing whether to close the so-called carried interest loophole, a controversial tax break that gives favorable treatment to the profits earned by private equity firms, hedge funds and venture capital investors. The latest signals suggest Hill Republicans may be souring on the idea, but conversations among tax writers are ongoing. Any effort to kill the tax break would be met with opposition from more business-friendly members, including on Financial Services. Hill told MM last week that the policy “is a major source of economic growth, jobs, that impacts every community in the country — it’s not a loophole.”

Hill and other Financial Services Republicans are also pushing tax writers not to strip municipal bonds of their tax-exempt status. They wrote in a letter to Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith last month that the exemption is “a critical tool that has underpinned American infrastructure and community development for over a century.”

Finally, the U.S.’s credit union lobby is playing defense as lawmakers face calls to strip the institutions of their tax-exempt status — a major lobbying push for community banks. Jim Nussle, the president of America’s Credit Unions and a former Republican lawmaker who chaired the House Budget Committee in the early 2000s, said the industry is “in a strong position going into this.”

But some credit union advocates — like lobbyists representing other segments of the financial services industry — worry that a last-minute deal could put them on the chopping block.

“We take nothing for granted,” Nussle said.

Make no mistake: Medicaid is at the center of the GOP’s challenges as they try to assemble their “big, beautiful” bill. And the problems start at the very top.

President Donald Trump is deeply skeptical of the emerging House Republican plan to make deep cuts to Medicaid to pay for the GOP’s megabill. And Speaker Mike Johnson is running out of time to convince him.

Senior House Republicans are expected in the coming days to present Trump with a menu of potential Medicaid changes, along with estimates of the savings they will generate and the impacts on beneficiaries.

Among the options the White House has agreed to consider is “per capita caps” — a controversial proposal that would limit the federal allotment to states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

The Trump administration has other ideas that have nothing to do with Medicaid: White House officials have requested proposals to instead find savings by pursuing a “most favored nation” drug-purchasing policy linking certain government payments for pharmaceuticals to the lower prices paid abroad, reviving a failed push from his first term.

Johnson has been scrambling to secure Trump’s support, shuttling up and down Pennsylvania Avenue and calling him multiple times a day to ensure they remain in lockstep and avoid a repeat of the GOP divisions that doomed the president’s 2017 push to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

But divisions abound: While moderates continue raising concerns about rolling back Medicaid expansion, fiscal hawks have been angling for even steeper cuts to the program. House Freedom Caucus members, including Reps. Chip Roy, Andrew Clyde and chair Andy Harris, met with Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie late into Wednesday night — without reaching an agreement on how to proceed.

GOP senators, meanwhile, were briefed Wednesday on polling and options for Medicaid changes, including new work requirements, during their closed-door lunch by Foundation for Government Accountability’s Tarren Bragdon. Sen. Josh Hawley issued a warning afterward, saying benefit cuts would be “catastrophically unwise.”

Elsewhere, House Republicans are being hammered on multiple other fronts as their megabill dreams come crashing into political reality. Johnson failed Wednesday to resolve his standoff with vulnerable Republicans over raising the cap on state and local tax deductions, even as he expects Ways and Means to take up its draft of the GOP tax plan next week.

Key GOP lawmakers also yanked controversial provisions around car fees and antitrust enforcement from their Wednesday markups. And GOP Rep. Mike Turner is warning that a provision cutting federal government pensions that Oversight Republicans advanced Wednesday won’t pass the full House in its current form.

What else we’re watching:

– Thune’s Ed Martin problem: Senate Majority Leader John Thune has churned through the most controversial of Trump’s nominees, but he’s facing early warning signs over another: Ed Martin, the acting U.S. attorney for D.C. Sen. Thom Tillis, whose Judiciary committee vote could be pivotal, says he plans to meet with Martin as controversy swirls over his past comments about Jan. 6.

– “Skinny budget” incoming?: White House budget director Russ Vought will meet this morning with House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole and his dozen subcommittee chairs. The appropriators are clamoring for Vought to send a “skinny budget” this week, followed quickly by a full budget request, so they can start cranking out their dozen fiscal 2026 funding bills.

– Raining on REINS: Senate Republicans are already casting doubts that the version of the REINS Act that their House counterparts advanced Wednesday as part of Judiciary’s megabill markup can pass muster with their chamber’s parliamentarian. And that’s after House Judiciary Republicans stripped a different provision, on consolidating antitrust oversight, for a similar reason. “They always think they know what the Byrd rule is, and they have no clue what the Byrd rule is,” Sen. Rand Paul said.

Rachael Bade, Adam Cancryn, Jordain Carney, Brian Faler, Meredith Lee Hill and Myah Ward contributed to this report.