On The Hill

OLD DEM CAUCUS MEET NEW DEM CAUCUS: The fiery clutch of freshman House Democrats -- diverse, female and unapologetically outspoken -- isn't just making noise in Washington. The new Democrats -- symbolized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) -- are pushing to change the way the nation's capital does business, challenging the old guard in ways it's not used to. And in some cases, the new Democrats are winning.

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Take the showdown between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — one of two new Muslim House members. After Omar was slammed by senior Democrats for using what they saw as anti-Semitic tropes, Pelosi tried to tamp down the uproar by spearheading a resolution headed to the House floor to condemn anti-Semitism. But the speaker and her leadership team were forced to pull the measure after an outcry from Omar's allies — and other diverse Democratic members — over why Omar was being singled out for punishment.

Tensions flared at Wednesday's Democratic caucus meeting. My colleagues Mike DeBonis and Rachael Bade have a fly-on-the-wall look at how the party is grappling with the "growing rift over race and religion that threatened to hamstring the newfound majority." The debate turned "rancorous," according to my colleagues, and "multiple House members stood up to challenge the decision....endorsed by Pelosi and the rest of the House Democratic leadership."

“Why are we doing this?": “We’ve individually and collectively already responded to the fact that we oppose all isms that do not treat people in this country fairly and justly,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) told her colleagues. “To continue to engage in this discussion is simply an opportunity to give both the media and Republicans distractions from our agenda. We’ve got important work to do.”

“We need to have equity in our outrage,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who after the meeting said she was focused on “the occupant of this White House who is seeding every form of hate, emboldening it with racist rhetoric and policies. That is who we all need to be focused on, and this is a distraction.”

Blindsided: “Freshman Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) told Pelosi that she had 'put us in a bad position,' and complained about learning of the resolution on T.V.," according to the New York Times's “Freshman Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) told Pelosi that she had 'put us in a bad position,' and complained about learning of the resolution on T.V.," according to the New York Times's Glenn Thrush and Sheryl Gay Stolberg.

Big tent party . . . or not?: “I think there is a disappointment factor in a lack of foresight on how this worked. Anti-Semitism is very real and is an issue and should be addressed. But if we're truly trying to be the big tent party, then stuff like this this looks myopic to people," a senior Democratic Hill aide told Power Up.

This isn't the only time that powerful freshmen have flexed their political and policy muscle -- to the chagrin of some of their less progressive colleagues. Just a few examples: the challenge to Pelosi once again assuming the speakership; the fights over Medicare-for-all and how the party plans to approach the Green New Deal. To be clear: these issues are still part of the new guard's wish list, and nothing has happened on the legislative front to make them reality. But there's no question the ideas themselves are agenda-setting and have moved the party leftward, as many 2020 candidates embrace them.

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The AOC-led bunch is hardly the majority of House Democratic freshmen — and their do-or-die policies may or may not be good for their hold on the majority and chances of winning the White House next year.

Point: “Pelosi and more establishment Democrats are in a bit of a box because the truth is the base of their party is with Omar and Ocasio-Cortez. So by opposing the Green New Deal and pushing a vote on anti-Semitism on the Israel issue, they risk an uprising from their base," Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist and former staffer in the Trump White House, told Power Up.

Supporting evidence: By Wednesday night, 2020 candidates like Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), By Wednesday night, 2020 candidates like Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released statements saying the resolution condemning anti-Semitism and singling out of Omar had gone too far.

Example: “We all have a responsibility to speak out against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and all forms of hatred and bigotry, especially as we see a spike in hate crimes in America,” “We all have a responsibility to speak out against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and all forms of hatred and bigotry, especially as we see a spike in hate crimes in America,” Harris said . “But like some of my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, I am concerned that the spotlight being put on Congresswoman Omar may put her at risk.” Sanders and Warren said that the move was “a way of stifling debate” about Israel and “has a chilling effect on our public discourse.”

Counterpoint: The progressive rhetoric sounds to some like a purity test that will hurt moderates down the line.

“We have a majority in the House that was elected for the same reasons [as] in 2006 — a swath of independents voted for Democrats and elected moderates in swing states,” John Anzalone, a Democrat pollster whose firm ALG Research worked for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, told Power Up. “If we want to keep the House a majority for more than a term or two and take back the Senate — we again need to appeal to independents and moderates in order to get Democrats elected and that means we can’t be penalizing or primarying people just because they don't line up with one thing or another in a purity test.”

“If AOC thinks she can get elected in Georgia 7 then she doesn't understand Lucy McBath's reality,” Anzalone added.

LOOKING AHEAD: The intraparty fight on issues related to Israel is "an ideological and generational fault line that could end up sowing more division among Pelosi's ranks for the bigger fights ahead," my colleague Paul Kane writes. So people might want to heed Rep. Jan Schakowsky's (D-Ill.) advice for now: “Everyone stop tweeting!”

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“Our diversity is our strength, our unity is our power. And whenever we have been unified, we’ve been successful,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told PK.

Trust: “Unity on those issues, however, might be determined by how this saga ends, particularly on climate change, health care and the potential constitutional showdown with Trump,” PK writes. "Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) need to end the tension over Omar to build trust for the legislative battles ahead, or else the individuals involved will almost certainly feel aggrieved and take out their anger on more prominent issues," he added.

“We are actually making great progress on gun safety legislation, on democracy reform, on prescription drug reform — and Republicans would like nothing more than for us to be dragged down into daily skirmishes over identity politics at this point,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told Thrush and Stolberg. “We have to get past all of this, and quickly.”

Global Power

WHILE WE'RE ON THE TOPIC OF ISRAEL: My colleagues Loveday Morris and Ruth Eglash report that, "[a]lthough no Israeli government figures were available for January, the United Nations had recorded at least 30 incidents this year in which Israeli settlers were accused of causing casualties or damaging property, with a total of 14 Palestinians injured and one killed.” The U.N. has expressed alarm at the recent spate of Israeli attacks in the West Bank.

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“The most serious incident took place in January near the rural West Bank village of al-Mughayyir, when a Palestinian was shot dead, allegedly by settlers belonging to a volunteer security team for the nearby Israeli settlements. According to the United Nations, nine other Palestinians suffered gunshot wounds when the settlers opened fire during a confrontation on the outskirts of the village,” my colleagues report.

“While the number of Palestinian attacks in the West Bank dropped last year, their severity appeared to increase. According to Shin Bet figures, six civilians and five soldiers were killed. The agency said there were 1,153 Palestinian “terror” incidents in the West Bank, a figure that includes stone-throwing,” they add.

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The Investigations

COHEN'S CREDIBILITY: The Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Ballhaus reports that Michael Cohen, who appeared Wednesday in a closed-door hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, "directed his attorney last spring to inquire about the possibility of a presidential pardon, weeks after federal agents raided his properties, Mr. Cohen’s lawyer said Wednesday, apparently contradicting his testimony before a House committee last week."

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The lawyer's lawyer: “The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Stephen Ryan, Mr. Cohen’s attorney at the time, discussed the possibility of a pardon with lawyers for Mr. Trump in the weeks after the Federal Bureau of Investigation in April raided Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room. The president’s lawyers, including Jay Sekulow, Rudy Giuliani and Joanna Hendon, dismissed the idea of a pardon at the time, people familiar with the discussions said. But at least one of them, Mr. Giuliani, left open the possibility that the president could grant Mr. Cohen one in the future, they said.”

Hmmm: “In testimony before the House Oversight Committee last week, Mr. Cohen said: 'I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from Mr. Trump.'”

“During that time period, [Cohen] directed his attorney to explore possibilities of a pardon at one point with [Giuliani] as well as other lawyers advising President Trump,” Lanny Davis, Cohen's current lawyer, told the Journal, and referred to discussions with Trump's lawyers as “ongoing ‘dangling’ of a possible pardon by Trump representatives privately and in the media.”

“After July 2, 2018, Mr. Cohen authorized me as a new lawyer to say publicly Mr. Cohen would never accept a pardon from President Trump even if offered. That continues to be the case,” Davis told Ballhaus on Wednesday. “His statement at the Oversight Hearing was true — and consistent with his post-joint defense agreement commitment to tell the truth.”

Meanwhile, in the private hearing yesterday, CNN's Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb reported that Cohen “provided the House Intelligence Committee with new documents showing edits to the false written statement he delivered to Congress in 2017 about the Trump Organization's pursuit of the Trump Tower Moscow project into the 2016 campaign season, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.”

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Allegation: “The documents Cohen provided are intended to further explain his public testimony last week, in which Cohen said that President Donald Trump's then-personal lawyer [Sekulow] made changes to his statement to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and that it was reviewed ahead of time by lawyers like Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the President's daughter and son-in-law who are both White House advisers," per CNN.

Response: Sekulow called Cohen's allegations "completely false" and CNN previously reported that per "two of the sources familiar with the preparation, including one close to the Trump Organization and one close to the President's legal team, the lawyers had no indication that any of the information in the testimony of Trump's now-former longtime attorney and fixer was inaccurate.”

The People

TIME'S UP: During a hearing on sexual assault in the military on the Hill, Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) revealed her own harrowing experience: she was raped by a superior officer while serving in the Air Force. The country's first female fighter pilot to fly in combat said she shared "the disgust of the failures of the military system and many commanders who failed in their responsibilities," my colleague Felicia Sonmez reports.

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“Like you, I am also a military sexual assault survivor,” McSally said, addressing several witnesses set to testify at the hearing about their own assaults while serving in uniform. “But unlike so many brave survivors, I didn’t report being sexually assaulted. Like so many women and men, I didn’t trust the system at the time.”

“The perpetrators abused their position of power in profound ways,” she said. “In one case, I was preyed upon and raped by a superior officer.”

“We are appalled and deeply sorry for what Senator McSally experienced and we stand behind her and all victims of sexual assault,” said Capt. Carrie Volpe, an Air Force spokeswoman in response to McSally's remarks. “We are steadfast in our commitment to eliminate this reprehensible behavior and breach of trust in our ranks.”

“Don't let the assaulter rob you of your future”: McSally sat down with CBS This Morning's Norah O'Donnell for her first interview since revealing she was raped. She told O'Donnell the military chain of commands needs to "step up and do their job." Excerpts from their conversation that will air shortly:

O’Donnell: “Do you think the prevalence of sexual assault and abuse in the military is a national security threat?”

Sen. McSally: “I do. I do … but for sure I don’t want people to think like well maybe it’s just all these problems we have now that there are women in the military. Think about it — if you have a predator, if you have a rapist who is serving in uniform, you don’t deal with it by keeping a woman out of their unit. Because that predator is going to go assault someone else.”

Sen. McSally: “If anybody last night or 50 years ago has also been through a sexual assault, I just want to give them some hope. I want to shine a flashlight for them — that today can be a new day. That they can find some healing in their own lives. They can find their own purpose and not be held back and not be stopped from fulfilling all of their potential in life because of the awful things that they were victimized from. Don't let your assaulter rob you of your future. Don't do it.”

In the Media

BREAKING: “Documents obtained by NBC 7 Investigates show the U.S. government created a secret database of activists, journalists, and social media influencers tied to the migrant caravan and in some cases, placed alerts on their passports,” NBC 7's Tom Jones, Mari Payton and Bill Feather report.

“As the migrant caravan reached the San Ysidro Port of Entry in south San Diego County, so did journalists, attorneys, and advocates who were there to work and witness the events unfolding. But in the months that followed, journalists who covered the caravan, as well as those who offered assistance to caravan members, said they felt they had become targets of intense inspections and scrutiny by border officials.”

“OPERATION SECURE LINE”: “Now, documents leaked to NBC 7 Investigates show their fears weren’t baseless. In fact, their own government had listed their names in a secret database of targets, where agents collected information on them. Some had alerts placed on their passports, keeping at least three photojournalists and an attorney from entering Mexico to work.," NBC 7 reports.

DOSSIERS: “In addition to flagging the individuals for secondary screenings, the Homeland Security source told NBC 7 that the agents also created dossiers on each person listed. 'We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,' the Homeland Security source told NBC 7 Investigates. 'We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.”

“The document appears to prove what we have assumed for some time, which is that we are on a law enforcement list designed to retaliate against human rights defenders who work with asylum seekers and who are critical of CBP practices that violate the rights of asylum seekers,” Nicole Ramos, the Refugee Director and attorney for Al Otro Lado, a law center for migrants and refugees in Tijuana, Mexico told NBC 7 by email.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced that 471 parents were deported without their children as part of the administration's “zero tolerance” policy at the southern border.

“Wednesday’s revelation came hours after Nielsen testified under oath before Congress that she knew of no migrant adults who were removed under “zero tolerance” without first having been given the option to reunify with their loved ones,” reported the New York Daily News.

The key quote: “There was no parent who has been deported to my knowledge without multiple opportunities to take their children with them,” Nielsen said before the House Homeland Security Committee.