Van Hollen Calls Out Schumer for Siding With AIPAC and Crypto

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen is plotting out his position against Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.

“I am listening to all the people from around the country that were calling for big change,” Van Hollen said at the Popular Mandate national conference Tuesday, according to Semafor reporter David Weigel. “I am in the process right now of calling my colleagues.”

“We just saw democracy in America in action. We should bring a little more democracy to the United States Senate,” Van Hollen continued. “We have two newly-elected senators who would not be there if Schumer and the [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee] had their way.”

Van Hollen then drew a line in the sand, arguing that Schumer and the DSCC had “sided with the crypto industry” and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known by the acronym AIPAC.

A wave of Democratic voices have been opposing Schumer’s leadership and establishment politics since the party won the majority in Congress in last week’s elections. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has emerged as a potential alternative, indicating a rising interest in progressive leadership. His office has received an “outpouring of calls and is now in active listening mode,” one source told Politico’s Playbook.

Van Hollen’s national profile rose last year when he traveled out of the country to visit his constituent Kilmar Ábrego García after García was illegally deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s notoriously lethal maximum security prison, CECOT.

Whether or not Van Hollen will officially commit himself against Schumer remains to be seen, though the Marylander has already started to draft an opposition platform that could put pressure on Schumer’s politics. On Tuesday, Van Hollen declared that the U.S. cannot spend “a penny more” on the Iran war, daring Donald Trump to either stop funding the war or face the possibility of a government shutdown.

So far, at least 10 major senators or senators-elect have either peeled away from Schumer outright or indicated interest in a different Senate majority leader. Another 14 have not yet committed as to whether or not they will support Schumer, according to an analysis published Monday by Primary Democrats. Altogether, that’s 24 Democrats—or nearly half of the at least 54 Democratic seats that will dominate the upper chamber come January.

But Schumer remains undeterred by the mounting opposition.

“I’m confident I will be elected majority leader,” Schumer said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. “Our caucus is really united in focusing on bringing down costs, on ending the corruption, on ending the chaos, on ending the war. We have great unity in our caucus and I’ll be proud to lead as majority leader.”

A Minneapolis woman who was violently pulled out of her car and arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while she was on her way to a doctor’s appointment in January is suing the federal government.

Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Minnesota Tuesday claiming that she was the victim of false arrest and imprisonment, negligent supervision, negligence, assault, and battery.

“I am one of many who have been impacted by this government’s vile abuse of power,” Rahman said in a statement. “And while this lawsuit stems from what happened in January, the terror did not start there and has not stopped.”

Rahman, who is autistic and has physical disabilities, was traveling to a medical appointment on January 13 during Operation Metro Surge, the federal government’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota’s twin cities. ICE agents surrounded her car and smashed her window after she said, “They needed to learn how to respect human beings,” her complaint states. They then dragged her out of the car and sent her to a federal detention facility for hours. She said that she was denied medical care while in ICE custody, and had to go to the hospital after losing consciousness.

Her violent arrest was captured on video and went viral online, and she later testified before Congress. She went on to attend President Trump’s State of the Union address in February as a guest of Representative Ilhan Omar, and was arrested by Capitol police for “disruption of Congress,” before the charges against her were dropped in March.

Rahman’s lawsuit comes after multiple attempts to hold ICE agents accountable. She filed a Federal Tort Claims Act claim alleging unlawful force and detention in April, and in June filed a federal complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The tort claim was a prerequisite for Tuesday’s lawsuit.

Rahman’s attorney, Jessica Gingold of the MacArthur Justice Center, said at a news conference Tuesday that part of the lawsuit’s goal was identifying the agents responsible for the violent attack.

“We will find the names,” Gingold said. “We have their pictures…. We have a right to depose them. We have a right to get their records to understand who these individuals were who heard Aliya, frustrated and confused, and reacted with such violence.”

Trump officials are destroying documents related to his pet projects in Washington, D.C., according to whistleblowers.

CNN reports that whistleblowers have warned House Democrats that key documents have already been destroyed before Democrats take over Congress in January. Democratic Representative Jared Huffman, the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, plans to issue letters to the Department of the Interior, as well other federal agencies and private companies involved in the president’s projects, demanding that they “preserve all records and data responsive to oversight.”

Huffman is also sending letters to the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Department of Agriculture, as well as companies such as Lockheed Martin and John Deere, which have donated to Trump’s projects in the past.

The recipients of Huffman’s letters must reply to certify their compliance. This means that they should make efforts to “preserve existing records collections and productions,” as well as “identify and recover any deleted information” and “suspend any destruction and deletion practices.”

“Everything is coming; it’s all coming,” Huffman told CNN. “It’s just going to be an entirely new day.”

Huffman told CNN that his committee could stop some of Trump’s projects, “especially because we have standing to go to court if we have to,” he said. “We’ll have tools to be able to stop a lot of it.”

The Interior Department said that the whistleblowers were “100 percent false,” saying that “the department follows all federal records management obligations as directed by the department’s ethics officials.”

Documents on Trump’s ballroom, his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, his takeover of the East Potomac Golf Links course, and his triumphal arch could all be at risk.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has added his name to the growing list of liberal-minded lawmakers asking Chuck Schumer to hand over the reins of the Senate.

“I like Chuck. Nobody works harder than Chuck Schumer,” Sanders said at a joint press conference with Senator Elissa Slotkin Tuesday. “But in my view, the time is now for change, and I will not be supporting Chuck to be reelected as the Democratic leader.”

The Democratic Socialist encouraged “vigorous debate” as the party searched for an alternative, and highlighted that such a process should take place “out in the open.”

“We need … to show the American people that a new day has come, and that their votes meant a new direction in Washington,” Sanders said.

Sanders told reporters earlier in the day that he would not support Schumer’s bid for Senate majority leader in the new year. When asked by The Washington Times’s Lindsey McPherson if he would support Schumer even if the current leader runs unopposed, Sanders responded: “He’s not going to run unopposed, I don’t think.”

A wave of Democratic voices opposing Schumer’s possible return atop the Senate emerged after the party won an overwhelming majority in Congress last week, rebuking the septuagenarian’s establishment politics. In the days since, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has emerged as a potential alternative, indicating a rising interest in progressive leadership.

Van Hollen rose as a leading progressive last year, when he travelled out of the country to visit his constituent Kilmar Ábrego García after García was illegally deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s notoriously lethal maximum security prison, CECOT.

Whether or not Van Hollen will officially commit himself against Schumer remains to be seen, though the Marylander has already started to draft an opposition platform that could put pressure on Schumer’s politics. On Tuesday, Van Hollen declared that the U.S. cannot spend “a penny more” on the Iran War, daring Donald Trump to either stop funding the war or face the possibility of a government shutdown.

So far, at least 10 major politicos have either peeled away from Schumer outright or indicated an interest in a different Senate majority leader. They include:

• Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
• Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin
  
• Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed
• Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal
• Illinois Senator-elect Juliana Stratton
• Minnesota Senator-elect Peggy Flanagan
• Kansas Senator-elect Adam Hamilton
• Maine Senator-elect Troy Jackson
• New Hampshire Senator-elect Chris Pappas
• Texas Senator-elect James Talarico

Another 14 senators or senators-elect have not yet committed as to whether or not they will support Schumer, according to an analysis published Monday by Primary Democrats. Altogether, that’s 24 Democrats—or nearly half of the at least 54 Democratic seats that will dominate the upper chamber come January.

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also refused to support her home state senator, though the decision is ultimately up to the Senate.

This story has been updated.

House Republicans elected Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio as their new minority leader on Tuesday.

Jordan, who has served as a representative for Ohio’s 4th district since 2007, won the secret ballot vote 106–73, two people present for the tally told Politico. He was up against Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who currently serves as the number two Republican in the House.

Jordan was selected following sweeping Democratic victories in the midterm elections that flipped the House and Senate, prompting House Speaker Mike Johnson to announce he would step down from Republican leadership.

There are plenty of reasons that Jordan has previously been kept out of such a powerful position. That is, until now.

Years before Jordan was elected to the House, he served as an assistant coach to Ohio State University’s wrestling team between 1986 and 1994. The Ohio Republican has faced severe blowback for allegedly participating in a coverup of the rampant sex abuse by team doctor Richard Strauss, who committed 1,429 sexual assaults and 47 rapes against at least 177 male student-athletes during his tenure, according to a 2019 university report.

Jordan also has earned a reputation as a vocal election denier who assisted President Donald Trump in his proven efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election in 2020. Along with several of his Republican colleagues, Jordan refused to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The committee unearthed evidence that Jordan had materially relevant communications with Trump and others related to January 6. In July this year, Jordan referred former special counsel Jack Smith to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution, alleging that he’d made false statements to Congress.

As House Judiciary Committee chairman, Jordan enjoyed playing Trump’s personal attorney. Now he’ll get to lead the much-diminished party as it fends off investigations from Democratic lawmakers.

This story has been updated.