Epoch Times: Top political stories of 2023 | Eastern North Carolina Now

A great deal has happened in U.S. politics since the end of the 2022 election cycle and the start of the 118th Congress.

The House Speaker rose and fell as the Republican lower chamber faced off with the Democrat upper chamber and the White House.

Republicans made good on their promises to investigate the first family’s foreign business dealings, culminating in the authorization of an impeachment inquiry into the president.

Former President Donald Trump fought in courts across the nation against an unprecedented slew of indictments and allegations—and leads the Republican pack in spite of it.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent bid for the presidency made waves, garnering far more support than political observers would have foreseen a year ago.

For the first time in history, Republicans booted one of their own from Congress.

From indictments to an impeachment inquiry to the kick-off of the 2024 election cycle, the year has consisted of many memorable moments.

In what some observers describe as campaign “lawfare” conducted against the leading GOP candidate, the former president faces a multitude of legal challenges, both criminal and civil, as well as efforts to remove him from the ballot in local, state, and federal courts across the country.

President Trump has been indicted in Manhattan, Georgia, and two federal cases, totaling 91 charges.

Across different courts, President Trump is facing various charges, including alleged campaign finance violations connected to a hush money payment in 2016, alleged mishandled classified information, alleged orchestration of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, and alleged actions to overturn the 2020 election.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and maintains that the cases are “ridiculous and baseless” and add up to a “witch hunt” to keep him from taking back the Oval Office.

The iconic and unprecedented mugshot image taken of the former president in the Georgia case prompted celebration from his opponents and outrage from his supporters.

President Trump will be in and out of court starting early 2024 as his trials continue, or begin, and the campaign season ramps up.

The Republican frontrunner is also facing unprecedented challenges to his right to run.

Critics claim that President Trump engaged in an “insurrection” against the United States and is thus disqualified from running under a little-used clause of the 14th Amendment.

Nationally and in the key early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, President Trump holds a commanding lead in the polls.

His boycott of the debates mean they’ve likely had little impact on the race, experts say.

“Given Trump’s enormous and consistent lead in the polls, there’s an argument to be made that none of the Republican primary debates so far has had much of an effect,” Northeastern University journalism professor emeritus Alan Schroeder told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Kennedy initially entered the 2024 race as a Democrat. But with President Biden all but guaranteed to win the nomination, due to the Democratic National Committee’s refusal to hold debates and locking Mr. Kennedy out of primary races, the latter decided to run as an independent.

Mr. Kennedy’s platform includes increasing the minimum wage to $15, securing the border, prioritizing civil liberties, supporting unions, taking on the pharmaceutical industry, reallocating military spending to domestic priorities, and cleaning up Washington.

But in a closely-divided race, Mr. Kennedy’s involvement could tip the scales either way, similar to Ralph Nader in 2000 and Ross Perot in 1992.

Republicans almost immediately opened long-promised investigations into first son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. Those investigations later uncovered more than $20 million from sources in Romania, Ukraine, and China that had allegedly benefited the Biden family or their associates.

Republicans say evidence hints that President Biden was involved in and benefited from his son’s dealings.

President Biden, meanwhile, has denied wrongdoing, calling the allegations against him a “bunch of lies.”

Mr. Kevin McCarthy in September announced the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry without the approval of the House.

But after the White House denounced the probe as “illegitimate” without a floor vote, all House Republicans voted in December to formalize the probe, a move expected to give Republicans legal fire power as they seek to enforce subpoenas.

Also in December, Hunter Biden refused a subpoena to testify to the House behind closed doors, explaining in a speech outside the Capitol that he won’t attend the deposition, and will only testify publicly, while claiming that his father is innocent of any wrongdoing.

This move prompted House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to announce contempt of Congress proceedings against Mr. Biden for refusing to comply with the subpoena.

“We will not provide special treatment because his last name is Biden,” said Mr. Jordan.

Mr. Biden is already facing two indictments with a total of 12 charges related to tax and firearms crimes. If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum 42 years in prison.

The new charges were brought after a judge rejected a plea deal in which Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and a diverted gun charge.

Mr. Biden will appear in court in California on Jan. 11.

Facing robust opposition from the right flank of the House GOP conference, Mr. McCarthy stood firm. He eventually clinched the speakership by the minimum threshold after 15 heated rounds of voting.

This intense battle in January laid bare the internal divisions within the Republican conference.

In a memorable incident, after the 14th round of voting, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) was restrained after losing his temper with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a prominent figure in opposition to Mr. McCarthy.

The protracted speaker election, the longest since 1860, foreshadowed the challenges Mr. McCarthy would grapple with in the months ahead.

In his quest for the gavel, Mr. McCarthy made significant concessions, notably agreeing to lower the threshold required to bring a motion to vacate the chair. Under these revised rules, a single member could initiate such a proceeding.

Over 269 contentious days, Mr. McCarthy led the House Republican conference through a series of conflicts, attempting but ultimately failing to reconcile the moderate and conservative wings of the party.

Battles over the debt ceiling, spending issues, and looming government shutdowns highlighted the growing dissatisfaction among the party’s conservative faction. They sought a more aggressive approach towards the Democrat-led Senate and the White House.

This discontent culminated on Oct. 3 when Mr. Gaetz followed through on a promised motion to vacate the chair.

In an unprecedented turn, Mr. McCarthy was ousted from the speaker’s chair with eight Republicans joining House Democrats in a 216–210 vote.

Following his removal, Mr. McCarthy’s close ally, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), assumed the role of speaker pro tempore.

With Congress in limbo for 22 days, House Republicans navigated through three unsuccessful nominations before electing Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) with unanimous party support, while Democrats backed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Mr. Johnson, the first speaker from Louisiana, assumed his new office with just days to spare until a government shutdown.

Until then, he was a relatively unknown quantity.

Although he was former vice chair of the Republican conference in the House, like former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Mr. Johnson had no senior leadership experience. But unlike Mr. Ryan, he had also never held a chairmanship position on any major House committees.

Since taking office, Mr. Johnson has sought a new approach to dealing with both spending and foreign aid.

Forced to pass a stopgap spending bill to keep the government open, Mr. Johnson proposed the unorthodox solution of splitting the bills into two dates, giving conservatives more opportunities to leverage the risk of a government shutdown to win concessions from Democrats.

Mr. Johnson has been equally unorthodox in his approach to foreign aid.

He offered funding for Israel on the condition that roughly $14 billion be stripped from the IRS, which had been given a windfall in the previous year’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Democrats found the trade-off unacceptable and the bill has made no progress in the Senate.

Mr. Johnson has also vowed that the House will not consider any further foreign aid for Ukraine without substantial concessions to secure the southern U.S. border.

Still, Mr. Johnson’s first few months in the House’s top spot have painted the portrait of a speaker still trying to get his bearings in his new job, with little progress being made on key legislative priorities.

At the start of the freshman lawmaker’s tenure in Congress, journalists uncovered evidence that Mr. Santos had made a series of lies during his campaign.

Additionally, midway through the 118th Congress, Mr. Santos was indicted on 23 federal charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.

The federal charges were brought weeks after the bipartisan House Ethics Committee released a report outlining Mr. Santos’ misconduct during his 2022 campaign.

Even before the committee report, Mr. Santos admitted to fabricating parts of his past, from his family history to his educational background and his employment experience.

Ahead of the vote to expel him, lawmakers against his expulsion argued that Mr. Santos should be granted due process, while those in favor said he had built his brand off falsehoods.

The vote was conducted before Mr. Santos had been convicted on any charges; which after the vote, Mr. Santos said, “just set a new dangerous precedent.”

Mr. Santos’s expulsion means that voters in New York’s 3rd congressional district will go to the polls twice in 2024: first to elect Mr. Santos’s short-term replacement, and second to elect their representative for the 119th Congress.