Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has tried to insulate Republicans in case more damaging information comes out about President Donald Trump and swings public opinion, even as he lashes out at Democrats for pursuing an impeachment inquiry.

The Kentucky Republican has accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of caving to the Democratic “far left” in pursuing “a never-ending impeachment parade in search of a rationale.”

Still, he has yet to offer a vigorous public defense of Trump and his interactions with the Ukrainian president, which are at the center of the latest controversy. And he allowed passage of a resolution pushed by Democratic leader Chuck Schumer that urged the White House to let lawmakers see a whistle-blower’s complaint about the president’s actions.

Several Republican senators are following McConnell’s lead, offering circumspect reactions to the release of a White House memo of Trump’s call and the whistle-blower complaint that flagged it as potentially criminal. On Thursday, an increasingly common response from GOP senators was that they’re withholding judgment because they could be called upon to act as jurors if Trump is impeached in the House.

“The question that my House colleagues are having to contemplate right now is whether or not it rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor” necessary for impeachment, Senator Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana, said Thursday. “I’m a potential juror in this whole situation if they determine that it is. Jurors aren’t supposed to talk.”

At a closed-door meeting this summer, oil and gas industry lawyers criticized the Trump administration’s failure to recruit enough qualified people to secure policy victories that would outlast this presidency, according to a recording of the gathering.

The audio from an Independent Petroleum Producers of America meeting in Colorado Springs, Colo., obtained by the Western Values Project and shared with POLITICO, contains some of the most unvarnished opinion coming from an industry that has been happy with the administration’s talk on oil and gas but frustrated with its results.

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“Two and a half years later, I don’t see the agencies getting better,” Mark Barron, head of energy litigation in the Denver office of BakerHostetler, told the group. “I don’t see that leadership or competence in the administration.”

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The June meeting came amid mounting frustration over the slow pace of the Trump administration’s major energy policies, including regulatory rollbacks at EPA and efforts from the Interior Department to spur new production. A commitment to open up more federal waters to offshore drilling has stalled amid legal and political pushback, the administration’s move to expedite permitting of pipelines, including for Keystone XL and the Mountain Valley Pipeline has been challenged in court, and states have sued over a rollback on methane emissions rules that even some oil companies have complained is too broad.

During the meeting, Wayne D’Angelo, head of energy litigation at D.C.-based Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, noted that EarthJustice, Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups had sued the administration more than three hundred times over its rollbacks of Obama-era rules, including those on methane emissions and hydraulic fracturing.

“There is a metric buttload of litigation going on in respect to the regulatory agenda,” D’Angelo said, adding that there were “a lot of early wins for environmental lawsuits.”

Just this once, wouldn’t it be nice to see Democrats lead and not just follow the polls?

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who chaired the subcommittee on Thursday, is the sponsor of a bill, the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act of 2019, that seeks to address these problems. The measure would heighten standards for ICE facilities, increase inspections, grant more robust rights to detainees, and phase out ICE’s use of private prisons. It has 130 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, all Democrats. Jayapal sought to use the hearing to explore the cruelty inflicted on ICE’s victims. Witnesses included Selene Saavedra Roman, a Dreamer wrongfully detained by ICE for six weeks; Denis Davydov, a gay HIV-positive immigrant wrongfully detained by ICE while seeking asylum from Russia; and Blanche Engochan, a Cameroon refugee subjected to horrific mistreatment in ICE detention.

These survivors had important and heartbreaking stories to tell about the trauma they suffered at the hand of ICE officers. Yet Homan repeatedly hijacked the hearing to express his outrage about the real victims of all this, himself and the agency he used to lead. He shrieked at congressional Democrats, accusing them of making “inaccurate and disgusting” attacks on his agency. He praised ICE detention facilities, insisting that they “have the highest standards in the industry” and the “best facilities in the world.” In fact, Homan suggested that the U.S. spends too much money taking care of ICE detainees, declaring: “I think a lot of taxpayers would be insulted on the amount of money we spend on such a high standards.” And he charged Democrats with “grandstanding political theater to attack our president and this administration and the men and women who serve in this administration.”

The most indelible moment arrived when Homan’s time expired—and he refused to stop speaking. Jayapal attempted to gavel him down, but he continued to insult her. His rant ended with a moment of rage as he lectured Jayapal: “I’m a taxpayer, you work for me!”

President Trump met Friday with National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre to discuss how the gun rights organization could possibly provide financial assistance to help defend the president as he faces a scandal, The New York Times reported Friday, citing two people familiar with the situation.

An administration official confirmed to The Hill that Trump and LaPierre met, but did not say what they discussed.

The Times reported that it was not clear who initiated the meeting, but that in it, LaPierre requested that the White House “stop the games” on gun control legislation.

Following mass shootings earlier this year, Trump has floated various possible gun legislation measures. According to the Times, LaPierre has attempted to sway Trump against background check measures the president said he could support.

Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) on Friday became the first House Republican to voice support for an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

In a conference call with reporters, Amodei made clear he wouldn’t vote to impeach Trump, but he also expressed concern over the president’s dealings with Ukraine, adding that the House should “put it through the process and see what happens.”

“I’m a big fan of oversight, so let’s let the committees get to work and see where it goes,” he said, according to audio of the call released by The Nevada Independent.

“Using government agencies to, if it’s proven, to put your finger on the scale of an election, I don’t think that’s right,” Amodei added. “If it turns out that it’s something along those lines, then there’s a problem.”

He later issued a statement after The Independent’s piece was published, emphasizing he was not in favor of impeaching Trump but supportive of the investigative approach.

“In no way, shape, or form, did I indicate support for impeachment,” he said.

Amodei, who represents a ruby red district in northern Nevada, said he agreed with a statement from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) in which she said, “We have to follow the facts and figure out what happened here.”