The political uproar surrounding former President Donald J. Trump’s indictment for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election is now seeping into the intensifying congressional spending battle. Conservatives, following Trump’s lead, are targeting federal law enforcement agencies, further complicating efforts to avoid a government shutdown.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Georgia Republican and close ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, responded to the indictment by pledging to reduce funding for special counsel Jack Smith and indicating her opposition to other law enforcement spending measures. With Republicans already pushing for significant spending cuts and social policy requirements that have alienated Democrats, they can only afford to lose four votes within their own party. A few defections could potentially derail the bills.
“This is nothing more than a political assassination, and I cannot support funding a communist regime,” stated Ms. Greene after Trump’s most recent indictment. “I will not vote to fund a government that weaponizes itself to politically persecute not only President Trump but all conservative Americans.”
Her stance mirrors that of Trump himself, who, after pleading not guilty to 34 felony charges in April, called for defunding the Justice Department on his social media platform, stating, “REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES.”
While any attempts by the House to fulfill Trump’s demands will likely fail in the Democratic-led Senate and at President Biden’s White House, the Republican unrest caused by the indictment has injected a strong political incentive into the spending battle. This has increased Republicans’ willingness to engage in a shutdown fight, potentially creating a difficult situation for McCarthy as he tries to appease the conservative wing of his party while avoiding a funding lapse on October 1.
A right-wing advocacy group that wields significant influence among the most conservative House Republicans has been advocating for deep cuts and “systemic changes” to the FBI. In light of Trump’s indictment, this approach may gain traction. Lawmakers who were once hesitant to slash the law enforcement budget may now feel empowered to do so.
Russ Vought, a former top budget official in the Trump administration who now leads the right-wing Center for Renewing America, expressed the group’s views on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), stating, “Ending the weaponization of the FBI means defunding the worst areas of corruption & the focus on intelligence that led it away from actual law enforcement.” The organization called for over $2.5 billion in FBI reductions, a nearly 25 percent cut. These proposed cuts would go even further than the reductions already being considered by House Republicans in their austere plan.
House Democrats are already united in their opposition to the emerging spending bills because they fall below the spending levels outlined in the agreement between Biden and McCarthy. They also contain numerous conservative policy riders that they find objectionable.
If conservatives succeed in pushing for deeper cuts and restrictions on federal law enforcement, this could alienate more mainstream Republican votes. McCarthy would then face a difficult choice: either allow the spending measures to fail and risk a government shutdown, for which his party would likely be blamed, or cooperate with Democrats to pass the bills, putting his leadership position at risk.
The conservative opposition to the FBI represents a significant departure from traditional Republican orthodoxy, which typically supports law enforcement. However, this viewpoint has little support in the Senate, where Democrats and Republicans have been working together in a bipartisan manner to advance spending bills. Most senators from both parties would oppose the kind of spending reductions for law enforcement sought by House conservatives.
“I do not believe that there will be support in the Senate for defunding the FBI despite its mistakes outlined by the inspector general, nor do I believe that an effort to restrict the Department of Justice would be successful,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee. “Our country is experiencing a crime wave, and we are in the midst of a serious drug epidemic. We need more law enforcement officers, not fewer.”
Despite this division, members of the House Freedom Caucus and other hard-right lawmakers are determined to push their agenda. They are even seeking to block the construction of a new $4 billion FBI headquarters, a project that is strongly supported by Democratic lawmakers from Maryland and Virginia.
The Center for Renewing America’s proposals go beyond blocking the headquarters. In a report released on July 25, the organization called for significant changes in the FBI’s operational funding, including the elimination of all spending on the intelligence branch. They argue that this $1.9 billion arm of the FBI has become a domestic intelligence agency that targets “law-abiding Americans and those holding disfavored views.”
House Republicans are already facing challenges in gaining approval for their spending measures due to differences within their own party. Some conservatives are pushing for additional spending cuts, while others oppose abortion rights restrictions and other policy initiatives. Reconciling these differences with the Senate’s version of the bills before the September 30 deadline, which marks the end of the fiscal year, seems highly unlikely.
To avoid a shutdown, Congress would need to pass a temporary stopgap spending bill. However, even this temporary solution is uncertain due to conservative demands for guaranteed deep spending cuts before moving forward.
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