The White House to Rep. Robert Garcia: “Please Stop Picking on the President!”

Oh, they're really butching it up now. The Republicans are carefully honing their Tough Guy act in preparation for their descent into legislative irrelevance at the turn of the year. Soon-to-be minority whip Tom Emmer, who managed to hang onto his position in the caucus despite the fact that he was part of Speaker Mike Johnson's leadership team, flexed particularly deeply on Tuesday.“Enjoy this honeymoon phase because come January 3, 2027, you will regret ever putting your name on a ballot.” Oh, Tom. You were always so rugged.Certainly, the elevation of Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff and Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-Van Heusen) ascension to Minority Leader of the incoming House of Representatives are not indications of a new and more reasonable Republican Party. And that's not even to mention the threat on Wednesday from the White House.We are monitoring the abusive and capricious threats that are now proliferating from Democrat legislators who seek to abuse the legislative process to intimidate and to interfere with the lawful functioning of government. Recent public statements underscore these concerns. You and your congressional colleagues have asserted that they will issue subpoenas to harass, threaten, and deter dedicated members of the Administration from further service. Several have compared their subpoena pledges to handing out “candy,” “Mardi Gras beads,” and enough paper to level forests.Your own statements are rather shocking because they exhibit all of these malicious and improper features. When Speaker Johnson warned that you would “do nothing all day, every day, every hour of the day, but go after the President, his family, his cabinet . . . donors in the party, [and] big figures in business and industry” for the sake of a “dangerous political game for their own benefit,” you replied: “He’s not wrong.” When you launched your “LAWYER UP” campaign, you prominently featured an image of a courtroom gavel set to the tune of a song called “The End.”The Trump Administration expects members of Congress to discharge their investigative functions ‘within settled constitutional limits. The Administration will not be extorted and will not be cowed by unlawful process motivated by animus, pettiness, hatred, or any other unlawful motive to intimidate, penalize, or interfere with the lawful functioning of government.Bold talk in defense of a guy who’s sitting on the Epstein files and may have arranged to transfer Ghislaine Maxwell to summer camp. One might be moved to suggest the White House "lawyer up."