Travis Gettys is a senior editor for Raw Story based in northern Kentucky. He previously worked as a web editor for WLWT-TV and a contributing writer for the Kentucky Enquirer, and he also wrote for the award-winning Sadly, No! blog. He has covered national, state and local politics, breaking news, criminal investigations and trials, sports and a variety of community issues, with a special emphasis on racial justice, right-wing extremism and gun safety.
Republicans may not be able to defund the FBI as punishment for searching Mar-a-Lago, but they do intend to exact some revenge on the agency's leadership.
GOP lawmakers have threatened a variety of investigations and oversight hearings, but Republicans themselves are split on how to claw back the FBI's reach and funding, although few have publicly agreed with calls from Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene to defund the law enforcement agency, reported Politico.
"As Gaetz’s House colleagues acknowledge, they don’t plan to make good on conservatives’ pro-Trump calls to 'defund the FBI' after its Mar-a-Lago search," the website reported. "Some, however, are planning to make the agency’s life as difficult as possible next year if they win back the majority."
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee unsuccessfully tried in recent hearings to force the Biden administration to turn over information related to a conspiracy theory about the FBI's alleged involvement in staging the Jan. 6 insurrection, and they intend to challenge FBI leaders on renewing the Section 702 surveillance program that's meant to target foreign nationals but sometimes inadvertently picks up communications by Americans.
“We’ve got some oversight to catch up on,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who blamed the FBI for having “strained” its relationship with House Republicans “by politicizing everything.”
Republicans also intend to challenge FBI leadership on tracking threats against school officials, which GOP lawmakers say targets conservative parents, and inject conspiracy theories into the mainstream.
“Somebody said ... you want to defund the FBI," said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC). "Nothing could be further from the truth. But it needs to be organized so that it returns to its robust strength and fortitude as a law enforcement agency."
Bishop has proposed undercutting the bureau's senior leadership and placing the FBI under the supervision of the 94 U.S. attorneys’ districts across the country.
“I think we ought to de-emphasize the sort of collection of power on the 7th floor of the FBI in the Washington field office and at Main Justice,” Bishop said.
An appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu grew snappish when CNN host Dana Bash pointed to overwhelming support for a new election as advocated by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
With Netanyahu talking over the host or refusing to pause to let her speak, Bash pressed him on sentiment in his country ∏ based on recent polling — that demonstrates Israelis are ready to move on over the way he is prosecuting the war against Hamas.
Things came to a head when Bash asked, 'Will you commit to calling new elections? That's my question — will you?'
"Dana, two-thirds — first of all, what you said is wrong — the vast majority of Israelis oppose early elections until the war doesn't end. we've just had many polls on that," he shot back. "Look a lot of the polls are twisted or guided by.."
"Channel 12 says 64 percent of Israelis support early elections," Bash interrupted as he kept talking.
"That's not —, I'm afraid that they ask them the question, do you support it during the war —" he replied as she interrupted him again with, "That not what Chuck Schumer is calling for. He's calling for new elections when the war winds down."
After a long pause, Netanyahu countered with, "Well, we'll see when we win the war. And until we win the war, I think Israelis understand that if we were to have elections now before the war is won, resoundingly won, we would have at least six months of national paralysis, which means we would lose the war. If we don't win the war, we lose the war."
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) let out an audible sign on Sunday when he was asked whether Donald Trump would follow the U.S. Constitution if he is elected for a second term.
During a Sunday interview on NBC, host Kristen Welker noted that Trump had vowed to release people convicted of crimes for the attacks on Jan. 6, 2021.
"I do not think it's appropriate," Cassidy replied. "We're a nation of laws, and those folks who are convicted, many times they pled guilty. If you plead guilty, i.e., obviously you are not a patriot, you're somebody who committed a criminal act."
"Senator, you know, it's interesting," Welker pressed, "when you became one of those who voted to convict former President Trump in his second impeachment, you said, our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person."
"Do you believe that former President Trump would follow the Constitution in a second term?" she asked.
Cassidy sighed audibly before continuing: "Now, that is a hypothetical, which is hard for me to kind of go at."
"And frankly, Kristen, that's the kind of question that people ask, almost begging an answer," he added. "All I can say is that we have checks and balances within our system that if any one person attempts to act in an unconstitutional fashion, that they can be theoretically checked."
The Social Security Administration’s new chief is promising to overhaul the agency’s system of clawing back billions of dollars it claims was wrongly sent to beneficiaries, saying it “just doesn’t seem right or fair.”
In an interview with KFF Health News, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley said that in the coming days he would propose changes to help people avoid crushing debts that have driven some into homelessness and caused financial hardships for the nation’s most vulnerable — the poorest of the poor and people with disabilities or persistent medical conditions or who are at least age 65.
O’Malley, who took office in December, said that “addressing the injustice we do to too many Americans because of overpayments, the rather cruel-hearted and mindless way that we recover those overpayments,” is among his top priorities.
He said he has concrete steps in mind, such as establishing a statute of limitations, shifting the burden of proof to the agency, and imposing a 10% cap on clawbacks for some beneficiaries.
“We do have the ability and we do have the authority to address many of these injustices,” he said, suggesting that the SSA won’t have to wait for congressional action.
The pledge comes after an investigation by KFF Health News and Cox Media Group television stations revealed that SSA routinely reduces or halts monthly benefit checks to reclaim billions of dollars in payments it sent to beneficiaries then later said they should not have received.
In some cases, years passed before the government discovered its mistake and then imposed debts that sometimes have reached tens of thousands of dollars on people who cannot afford to pay. KFF Health News and Cox Media Group discovered that more than 2 million people a year have been hit with overpayment demands.
O’Malley said the agency plans to cease efforts to claw back years-old overpayments and halt the practice of terminating benefits for disabled workers who don’t respond to overpayment notices because they did not receive them or couldn’t make sense of them.
“We’re not fulfilling congressional intent by putting seniors out of their homes and having them live under a bridge when they didn’t understand our notice,” O’Malley said.
Denise Woods lives in her Chevy, seeking a safe place to sleep each night at strip malls or truck stops around Savannah, Georgia. Woods said she became homeless in 2022 after the SSA — without explanation — determined it had overpaid her and demanded she send back roughly $58,000. Woods didn’t have that amount on hand, so the agency cut off her monthly disability benefits to recoup the debt.
The agency later restored some of her benefit allowance: She gets $616 a month. That’s not enough to cover rent in Savannah, where even modest studio apartments can run $1,000 a month.
In January, she fell ill and landed in intensive care with pneumonia. “I signed a [Do Not Resuscitate form] and a nurse asked, ‘Do you know what this means?'” Woods said. “I told her there was no reason to revive me if my heart stops. They have already ruined my life. I’m beyond exhausted.”
After KFF Health News and Cox Media Group published the series “Overpayment Outrage,” hundreds of disability beneficiaries came forward with troubling accounts, including how the government sent them overpayment notices without explanation and threatened to cut off their main source of income with little warning.
Members of Congress publicly demanded that SSA fix the problems. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said he would meet monthly with agency officials “until it is fixed.”
Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, both Michigan Democrats, sent a letter dated Feb. 29 to the SSA, saying many overpayments were caused by the agency. They asked officials to explain what is causing the problems.
“It’s absolutely critical that the agency is accurately administering these benefits,” Peters said in written response to an interview request. “I’ve heard from too many people across Michigan who have faced financial hardship after the agency sent them incorrect payments.”
The agency recovered $4.9 billion of overpayments during the 2023 fiscal year, with an additional $23 billion in overpayments still uncollected, according to its latest annual financial report.
O’Malley said he wants to address overpayment clawbacks as part of a larger effort to address SSA’s “customer service crisis.” He did not provide specifics but said he anticipated plans would be implemented this year.
Officials have long acknowledged that the federal disability system is dogged by lengthy delays and dysfunction. Some people become homeless or grow sicker while waiting for an initial decision on an application, which took an average of over seven months in 2023, according to a letter signed by dozens of members of Congress.
O’Malley said the agency terminates disability benefits for some people who don’t contact the SSA after receiving a clawback letter.
“To be honest, a lot of problems [are caused by] our notices being hard to read,” O’Malley said. “In fact, one might argue that the only thing that’s really clear about the notice is to call the 800 number.”
The agency’s toll-free number, O’Malley said, is on his fix-it list, too.
Callers complain of lengthy hold times and often are unable to reach an agent for help, according to congressional members, disability attorneys, and others.
O’Malley pointed to a 27-year low in staffing. “We’ve been unpacking many of these customer service challenges,” he said. “There’s not one of them that hasn’t been made worse by the short staff.”
Still, he said, the overpayment process is unfair. Beneficiaries often must produce evidence to show they did not receive extra money, O’Malley noted.
“One would assume that in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty,” he said, “that the burden should fall more on the agency than on the unwitting beneficiary.”
Advocates for the poor and disabled said they are hopeful O’Malley will stick to his commitments.
“Overpayments have long plagued our clients and caused severe hardship,” said Jen Burdick, an attorney with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, which represents clients who have received overpayment notices. “We are heartened to see that SSA’s new commissioner is taking a hard look at overpayment policy reforms and optimistic and hopeful his administration will provide these folks some long-needed relief.”
Mike Pistorio is worried that change won’t come fast enough for him.
A letter dated Sept. 21, 2023, that he received from the Social Security Administration says he was overpaid $9,344. The letter alleges Pistorio — a disabled 63-year-old who said he has four stents in his heart — received too much money on behalf of his children, who are now adults.
Pistorio said that he doesn’t understand why he owes the government money and that the SSA has not answered his questions. He said he and his wife live in fear of being evicted from their home because they depend on his $1,266 monthly disability benefits to pay rent.
“What makes me mad is none of this is my fault,” said Pistorio, who lives in Middletown, Pennsylvania, and worked as a plumber until his health faltered. “The stress of this has made my diabetes go up.”
Pistorio said the agency has offered to deduct $269 a month from his benefits to pay off his debt — an amount he says he cannot afford.
“I have told them ‘I will lose my housing,’” Pistorio said.
David Hilzenrath of KFF Health News and Jodie Fleischer of Cox Media Group contributed to this report.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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