As Spencer wrote yesterday, the House is in recess until next Tuesday. These people have left town without a spending bill to keep the government open. The deadline is September 30. We all know the drill: clamoring about spending cuts, the rollout of the usual talking points from both parties and then a massive spending splurge.
So, why do Trump supporters on the Hill see an opportunity embedded in this looming shutdown to help the former president with his current legal woes? It could derail the cases against Trump, but this is a Hail Mary shot. The Washington Post had a brief piece about it:
Former president Donald Trump has been cheering the small group of hard-right Republicans threatening a government shutdown. And this week he laid out pretty clearly why he’s okay with one: to also shut down investigations into him by shutting down the government, and thus the Justice Department.
“This is also the last chance to defund the political prosecutions against me and other patriots,” he said on social media.
But a government shutdown would probably not end the investigations against him. The Justice Department has said in a memo ahead of previous shutdowns that criminal investigations have to continue no matter what because they are “an activity essential to the safety of human life and the protection of property.”
Federal courts generally stay open during a shutdown, but the longer it drags on, they may run out of leftover funds and be forced to close, according to a contingency plan released by the federal office that oversees the courts.
So another idea Trump’s supporters in Congress have floated is to defund the investigators, such as special counsels, so that they couldn’t investigate Trump (or presidential son Hunter Biden, for that matter) without congressional approval. Some lawmakers also want to take away all federal funds from state courts in Georgia and New York if they are investigating a president.
If a majority of lawmakers agreed, that’s something they could do, since Congress controls spending. “They could say ‘no funds may be used for XYZ,’” said Molly Reynolds, a budget expert with the Brookings Institution.
But here comes the reality check: it will never pass. And Joe Biden will never sign such a bill. It does provide more intrigue ahead of this potential shutdown, but members of Congress, like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), have tried defunding the special counsel investigations against Trump before. How do you think they turned out?
Trump will eventually go to trial, but for some, it might not be for months.