Trey Gowdy

Rep. Trey Gowdy will return to the private law firm in South Carolina where he worked in the 1990s and will be a white collar criminal defense attorney.

The South Carolina Republican is retiring from Congress in January after serving five consecutive terms.

Paul D. Ryan is leaving his time as speaker of the House where he started it: in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, in a speech outlining his principles and showcasing his personality, and during a time that encapsulates the challenges any serious lawmaker faces.

“I leave here as convinced as I was at the start that we face no challenge which cannot be overcome by putting pen to paper on sound policy. By addressing head-on the problems of the day,” the Wisconsin Republican said on Wednesday amid colleagues and assorted allies and dignitaries across the street from the Capitol. “The state of politics these days, though, is another question, and frankly one I don’t have an answer for,” he added, emphasizing that re-engaging in the process, with humility and an exchange of ideas, as unlikely as that might sound today, was the way back to reclaiming public service’s luster and dignity. 

The House Ethics Committee found Rep. Mark Meadows failed to take “prompt and decisive action” to handle alleged sexual harassment in his congressional office, according to a Friday report.

The committee also found Meadows violated House rules by failing to take action to ensure his office was not engaging in discrimination.

House Republicans on Wednesday elected Rep. Kevin McCarthy as their minority leader over Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a decision that improves the likelihood that one day the California Republican might be speaker. 

McCarthy has vowed to lead Republicans back into the majority over the next two years. If he succeeds, the chances of him being elected speaker would be significantly higher than had Republicans held the majority this year. 

The high-profile joint House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform probe into bias at the top echelons of the FBI and Department of Justice during 2016 has been marked by pitched partisanship that has distracted from the substance of lawmakers’ oversight goals — at least publicly.

Some of the quieter GOP voices on the panel believe they can tout legitimate pieces of oversight success despite that partisan cloud.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s highly anticipated interview on Capitol Hill has been postponed, the chairmen of two House oversight committees announced late Tuesday, punting a high-profile event scheduled for Wednesday to an unknown date. 

“The Committees are unable to ask all questions of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein within the time allotted for tomorrow’s transcribed interview, therefore, the interview will be postponed. Mr. Rosenstein has indicated his willingness to testify before the Judiciary and Oversight Committees in the coming weeks in either a transcribed interview or a public setting,” Judiciary Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte and Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy said in a joint statement.

Updated | After weeks of contentious back-and-forth between House GOP lawmakers and Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general was finally set to answer some questions about comments he allegedly made about covertly recording President Donald Trump — until a last-minute postponement, that is, put off the highly anticipated sit-down. 

Rosenstein, who appears to have patched up his relationship with the president after reportedly preparing late last month to tender his resignation, was to field questions from just four leaders on the joint Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform panel — Republican Chairmen Bob Goodlatte and Trey Gowdy and Democratic ranking members Jerrold Nadler and Elijah Cummings.

Embattled Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein finally testifies. The Senate Judiciary Committee will continue its autumn of discontent. And President Donald Trump will sign opioids legislation before taking his midterms road show to Wisconsin.

No, Wednesday will not be your typical recess day. Rather, it will be a cable news bonanza chronicling the country’s era of tribal political warfare.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has agreed to sit for a transcribed interview with leaders of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees Oct. 24, the panels’ chairmen announced Thursday evening.

The announcement comes just hours after House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, an Oversight subcommittee chairman, called on Rosenstein to resign, citing his unwillingness to cooperate with the panels’ investigation.

Witnesses for the House GOP’s investigation into potential bias at the top levels of U.S. law enforcement have grown increasingly dubious of the probe — to the point that some actually prefer public hearings to private ones.

Case in point: Former FBI Director James Comey on Monday declined to submit to a private interview with members of the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform panels, who comprise a joint “task force” examining whether “decisions made and not made” by the Justice Department and FBI during the 2016 Clinton email and Trump-Russia investigations were tinged with anti-Republican bias.