Friday is the day all the fiddling stops, by this estimation, the day the U.S. House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack finally takes its first poke at a weight-bearing log in a seemingly interminable game of Jenga, Ultimate Politics edition.

Friday is when Jeffrey Clark plans to actually show up and testify to Congress about the elaborate if politically preposterous process that very nearly overturned an American election. Mr. Clark, a Philadelphia legal scholar, is part of Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania connection, the other being U.S. Rep. Scott Perry of Harrisburg, who represents the mid-state 92nd District.

It was Mr. Perry, the noted Trump sycophant, who by most accounts connected Mr. Trump to Mr. Clark, whom the former president hoped to install as attorney general and a kind of end-of-plot closer who could leverage the Justice Department to halt the final certification of ballots.

Mr. Clark will be the first Trump official to comply with a subpoena, and unless he tirelessly invokes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, plenty of Jenga logs might soon fall in the wake of his testimony. Plenty are seriously wobbly as it is.

On Sunday night, Rolling Stone published an investigative piece detailing how two of the former president’s flunkies helped Congressional Republicans organize and plan the seditious events of Jan. 6, two operatives who made it plain they felt abused by Mr. Trump (really!) and eager to testify publicly as well, even as they’ve already been in communication with members of the House committee.

Both of these auxiliary operatives told Rolling Stone they had multiple Jan. 6 planning conversations with Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert and/or their top staffers.

I know, all of whom you’d never, ever suspect, right? (Snort!).

WASHINGTON — A congressional ethics watchdog has concluded there is “substantial reason to believe” that the wife of Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly used nonpublic information gained through her husband’s position in Congress to purchase stock last year, a likely violation of federal law and House rules.

A report from the Office of Congressional Ethics released late Thursday detailed the April 2020 purchase of stock in an Ohio steelmaker. The company had threatened to shut down a plant in Mr. Kelly’s district unless the Trump administration took action that would help make it more competitive, steps the administration took after Mr. Kelly, a Republican, and others intervened.

The ethics office has recommended that subpoenas be issued for Mr. Kelly, his wife, Victoria, a senior staffer and former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross because they declined to be interviewed or participate in the investigation.

“Victoria Kelly made an uncharacteristic stock purchase ... on April 29, 2020, and profited from this purchase. The purchase occurred just after her husband, in the course of his official job duties, learned confidential information about the company,” the report states.

Though the ethics office investigates complaints, only the House Ethics Committee has the power to punish a lawmaker for wrongdoing. The committee said in a statement that it would review the report and investigate further.

NEENA HAGEN
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
OCT 19, 2021 4:57 PM

Faculty at the University of Pittsburgh will be forming a union, capping a five-year organizing campaign with an overwhelming vote in favor of joining the United Steelworkers.

The final tally Tuesday showed that 1,511 faculty members voted in favor of a union and 612 voted against.

The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board announced the results around 3 p.m., after counting began at 10 a.m. in the agency’s Harrisburg headquarters. The labor board mailed ballots to union-eligible faculty at the end of August and accepted all ballots returned by mail before Oct. 12 at 5 p.m.

Pitt’s faculty union will become the largest new union of any kind in the country this year, organizers said, with more than 3,000 people represented across all five of the university’s campuses. The union includes all full-time and tenured professors, as well as some part-time faculty.

U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, the long-serving member of the House from Pennsylvania, will not seek a 15th term in Congress, he said Monday afternoon.

“I believe time has come to pass the torch to the next generation,” Mr. Doyle said at his South Side district office.

Mr. Doyle, D-Forest Hills, is serving his 14th term in Congress, representing the deep-blue 18th District, which encompasses a large portion of Allegheny County.

The incumbent is already facing a challenge in the upcoming 2022 Democratic primary from University of Pittsburgh law professor Jerry Dickinson.

However, according to Federal Election Commission filings Monday, state Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, is now also seeking Mr. Doyle’s seat.

Ms. Lee, a leading progressive voice in Harrisburg, did not immediately respond for comment Monday morning.

Mr. Doyle’s announcement also comes as the redistricting process is underway in Pennsylvania, which will lose one of its 18 congressional districts, the Census Bureau confirmed in April.

First Published October 18, 2021, 11:50am