Congressmen Eli Crane (R-AZ) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ) have introduced a House Resolution demanding that the United States Secret Service surrender all documents, records, and communications regarding the July 13th Trump Rally in Butler, PA to Congress. The move came shortly after Crane’s visit to the venue, where the attempted assassination of President Trump occurred, with the House Homeland Security Committee led by Chairman Mark Green (R-TN).
As reported by AZ Free News, Rep. Crane shared his professional assessment of the attempted assassin’s sniper position in a potent testimony given his service as a Navy SEAL Sniper. According to a press release from Crane’s Congressional Office, the resolution, if adopted, will require Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to surrender all of the applicable records and documents within 7 days of the resolution’s passage.
“Yesterday, I visited the site of the attempted assassination against President Trump, including the roof where the shooter was positioned. As a former Navy SEAL sniper, it was clear to me that many security measures were completely dropped making President Trump extremely vulnerable,” Rep. Crane said in a statement.
“There’s no excuse for this grave failure. Accountability must be inescapable for those responsible. With today’s resignation of Secret Service Director Cheatle, we must continue to push aggressively for continued accountability.”
“After yesterday’s hearing with Secret Service Director Cheatle, during which the House Oversight Committee received no substantive answers, it is crucial for Congress to step in and conduct oversight over Secret Service’s failures on July 13th. House Leadership must quickly bring Rep. Crane’s legislation to the Floor to force Mayorkas’s DHS to comply with our ongoing investigation.”
In a joint-statement Reps. Crane and Biggs said, “The security failures that allowed an assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life are shocking.” They added, “In response to bipartisan demands for answers, we are announcing a House Task Force made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats to thoroughly investigate the matter. The task force will be empowered with subpoena authority and will move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and make certain such failures never happen again.”
By the time the resolution was introduced, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle had already resigned from her role following hours of bipartisan questioning and condemnation from the House Oversight Committee. Monday’s proceedings saw members of both parties such as Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Republican Rep. Nancy Mace (R-TN) demand Cheatle step down with Khanna referencing the resignation of Director H. Stuart Knight eight months after the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.
“I just don’t think this is partisan,” Khanna said. “If you have an assassination attempt on a president, a former president, or a candidate, you need to resign.”
Mace asked Cheatle if the beleaguered Director would like to use her last five minutes of questions to draft a resignation letter, to which Cheatle replied, “No, thank you.”
Cheatle's resignation does not conclude our investigation.
Thanks to a veto from the governor, Arizona’s attempt to find solutions for the future of its groundwater supply was marked ‘incomplete’ following the conclusion of the state’s legislative session.
Last week, Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed multiple pieces of legislation pertaining to the vital issue of water in the state of Arizona, while signing a series of those bills.
The most contentious of the latest round of vetoes appeared to be SB 1172, which would have “allow[ed] a person who owns land with an irrigation grandfathered right within an active management area to permanently retire the land from irrigation use and to retain a physical availability credit” – among other things, according to the purpose from the Arizona State Senate. The bill was sponsored by Senate President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope.
Senate President Warren Petersen was extremely disappointed in the governor’s veto of the proposal. He issued a statement over the past weekend, saying, “It’s incredibly disappointing the Governor did not sign SB 1172. Although we engaged her office on this proposal in January, they waited until May to do their due diligence and reneged last minute on an agreement. Her administration dropped the ball, and homebuyers will be the ones losing out because of her inaction.”
Petersen did note that Hobbs had signed three other groundwater-related bills, though he said that those proposals were meant to align with SB 1172 to have the maximum impact for the state. He added, “Three bills to increase housing supply while reducing groundwater pumping in Arizona, sponsored by Senate Leadership, were signed into law. All three measures transition higher-water-use land to lower-water- use housing developments through voluntary programs. While it was important for the state to look for new supplies, we get an equal benefit from reducing the demand on our aquafers. This legislation will allow Arizona to both conserve and grow. However, these bills were part of a package of four that would have made a far greater impact had they all been signed.”
In explaining why she had vetoed SB 1172, Hobbs wrote, “The concept at the core of this bill – conversion of agricultural lands to lower water use development – is a policy that has broad potential benefits and is one that my Administration supports. However, it is critical that the legislation be carefully crafted to ensure that the water conservation savings and consumer protections are guaranteed. It is clear that the unique data among Arizona’s Active Management Areas (AMAs) does not support universal adoption of this program across all four of the state’s initial AMAs (Phoenix, Pinal, Prescott, and Tucson), and that more time is needed to develop this concept in collaboration with stakeholders and lawmakers to ensure the legislation is crafted appropriately.”
The governor said that she “remain[s] committed to these discussions and finding a path forward to responsibly enact this concept.”
At the end of her veto letter to Arizona Legislative leadership, Hobbs highlighted that she had signed three water-related bills. She said, “While more work needs to be done on the ‘ag-to-urban’ legislation, I have signed several key pieces of legislation that promote responsible development and continued sustainable growth, including SB 1081, SB 1181, and SB 1242.”
Those bills were sponsored by Senators Sine Kerr, Petersen, and Shope.
In a race against Thursday’s deadline to prevent a potential conflict between state law and the federal election calendar deadline, Republican lawmakers have advanced a proposed set of bills while Democrats have balked. It’s unlikely the bills will become law, however, as Gov. Katie Hobbs quickly rejected them as “dead on arrival.”
Republican lawmakers from both the House and Senate announced their proposed solution, two bills, on Monday afternoon; by Tuesday morning, a joint committee had advanced the bills.
In a press release, the lawmakers said that the pair of bills, SB1733 and HB2785, would provide counties with an additional 19 days in the primary election calendar and an extra 17 days in the general election calendar to comply with federal deadlines.
State Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-LD07), chair of the Senate Elections Committee, expressed hope that Hobbs would sign the legislation if passed, claiming that a refusal would cause election turmoil and voter disenfranchisement. However, Hobbs dismissed the proposal almost immediately after its release.
“This commonsense solution promises to strengthen voter confidence, is backed by all Arizona county recorders, and allows our men and women who are serving in our armed forces overseas the opportunity to cast a ballot in our elections,” said Rogers.
HB2785 sponsor State Rep. Alexander Kolodin (R-LD03) remarked that it was “highly unlikely” the feared calendar conflict would come to fruition, and that the solution was “more complicated” than some other, unnamed solutions.
“There were many simpler ways to solve this problem, some of which do not require legislative solutions,” said Kolodin. “Nevertheless, we negotiated in good faith and agreed to accept this more complicated solution in exchange for signature verification and several other commonsense reforms.”
The solution aligns with recent requests by election officials, including that of Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates over the weekend.
On Tuesday, both SB1733 and HB2785 passed quickly and narrowly out of a special joint meeting with the Senate Committee on Elections and the House Elections Committee. Democrats uniformly opposed the bills, while all Republicans voted for them.
Arizona House Democrats described the bills as “a Christmas tree of unrelated and controversial policy provisions” that they and, likely, Hobbs would oppose.
Watch now, joint House/Senate Elections committees hear GOP bill for emergency recount issue. Far from a clean fix, their bill includes a Christmas tree of unrelated and controversial policy provisions that are non-starters with Dems & Governor’s Office.https://t.co/jxH2G5QbDr
In a joint statement issued over the weekend, Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes clarified that the governor wouldn’t approve any bill that carried “harmful unrelated legislation.”
The contested provisions include the imposition of the state’s first signature verification standards, as well as the expansion of signature curing hours to the weekend before and after an election for those elections including federal offices.
The proposed legislation would also create a category of verified early ballots exempt from review for voters who show ID when turning in their mailed early ballot in person.
The Arizona Association of Counties gave their support for both bills during Tuesday’s committee hearing.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
A northern Arizona city is showing its support for the nation of Israel.
Earlier this month, the Prescott City Council passed a resolution to condemn Hamas and declare support for the Jewish State of Israel.
The motion to pass the resolution, taken during the City Council’s voting meeting on December 12, was unanimously adopted 7-0. After the result was announced, those in attendance, as well as some of the members behind the dais, broke into applause.
Prescott Mayor Phil Goode, who ushered the resolution through the meeting, said, “I’m quite proud of this council and our adoption of this resolution. As I said, I hope there are other cities and towns in this state that will follow our lead.”
In the resolution, Prescott leaders highlighted the state’s adoption of “the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism which includes anti-Zionism.”
The resolution gave seven action items for the city to follow in its support of Israel, which were as follows:
Reaffirm its support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the Jewish State of Israel;
Recognize Israel’s right to act decisively and unilaterally in self-defense to protect is citizens;
Express its support for Israel’s right to pursue without interference or condemnation the elimination of Hamas;
Convey its most heartfelt condolences to all Israeli victims as well as their families and communities;
Call upon Prescott law enforcement to remain vigilant in protecting Israeli Americans, Jewish Americans and all supporters of Israel from acts of crime and unlawful discrimination that tend to manifest at such times;
Encourage all other Americans to likewise condemn Hamas as well as any official body that refuses to recognize Israel’s right to act decisively in self-dense to protect its citizens; and
Call upon the United States to provide all assistance as may be required to support Israel in its defense against Hamas and all other terrorist organizations.
The Prescott City Council’s strong demonstration of support for Israel follows a similar action taken by the Arizona State Legislature on October 11, when Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma issued a Joint Legislative Proclamation to “denounce the horrific acts of war against Israel and support Israel’s right to defend itself” – among other calls to action for the Legislature.
Today a Joint Proclamation Supporting Israel has been signed by @votewarren & @RepBenToma and condemns the hateful attack on our ally. Let's turn the Capitol Dome light blue to show AZ's support for Israel.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has the potential to find an effective resolution by considering the two-state option of relocating Palestinians to Jordan. This relocation would allow for their assimilation without hindrance, as there is already a significant number of Palestinians residing in Jordan, with 70% of the Jordanian population being Palestinian by ethnicity.
This proposed solution offers a viable pathway toward achieving peace, a goal that has been elusive for too long. Israel has consistently sought peaceful relations with its Muslim neighbors over the course of 75 years. However, these efforts have been met with horrifying acts of violence committed by Muslim terrorists on October 7, 2023. These acts have included heinous crimes such as rape, murder, and the mutilation of Israeli citizens. Such incidents not only caused outrage and shock but also demonstrated that Israel can no longer tolerate individuals who seek to eliminate the Jewish people from their biblical homeland.
Therefore, it is time for Palestinians to move toward the only two-state solution that makes sense. By designating Jordan as the Palestinian State, Palestinians will have the opportunity to create a prosperous society, which they have been deprived of under the oppressive rule of Muslim dictators and terrorists for decades.
The international community must now act as an honest broker to promote peace in the Middle East by acknowledging the historical importance of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza to the Jewish people. By accepting this historical context as undeniable truth and acknowledging Jordan as the legitimate homeland for the Palestinian people, it will pave the way for future generations of Jews and Muslims to coexist peacefully and permanently.
