It's suddenly occurring to vulnerable Senate Republicans that they're pretty much screwed after giving Donald Trump their seal of approval with an impeachment acquittal, and then watching him consign Americans to death and economic doom.
Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who some consider the walking dead at this point electorally, made a big, headline-grabbing show of urgency earlier this week to light a fire under the butts of his colleagues.
"It’s unfathomable that the Senate is set to go on recess without considering any additional #COVID19 assistance for the American people," Gardner wrote, keenly aware that House Democrats had already passed a giant relief bill. "Anyone who thinks now is the time to go on recess hasn’t been listening," he added, noting that Coloradans and Americans alike "are hurting."
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, also facing a tough reelection, joined Gardner in expressing her, shall we say, concern. "The fallout from the coronavirus is unprecedented," she tweeted, saying Congress had a "tremendous responsibility" to help mitigate the crisis. "We must not wait," she urged.
It was a notable break from the GOP caucus given that Trump had visited Capitol Hill just a day earlier to counsel unity among Senate Republicans and tell them to hang tough. So much for that—some of them are starting to sort of/kind of act like they want to save their own behinds. Good luck with that after every single one of them cast votes to saddle America with the leadership of Donald Trump.
But Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell couldn't be moved. McConnell has repeatedly signified zero sense of urgency on bringing any more relief to struggling Americans. And Trump's right there with him. Whatever supposed unity Trump went to the Hill to pitch was really just his way of saying, Do what I need you to do—or else.
That's why Gardner folded like a house of cards on his empty threat to block the Senate from recessing before they took meaningful action on helping the nearly 40 million Americans who have now filed for unemployment in the past couple of months.
Gardner told CNN's Manu Raju they were "close" on "PPP and some other things that will help Colorado," adding the he felt "good" about what they might be able to accomplish. Wow, was that ever an inspiring stand for the people.
Anyway, vulnerable Senate Republicans are clearly on their own, but it's also clearly not important enough for any of them to grow a spine—just like when they cast their acquittal votes.
Mitt Romney has defended voting by mail, saying that in Utah, the system “works very, very well,” defending recent criticisms of it by the President.
President Donald Trump has recently slammed vote-by-mail initiatives, noting that it leads to large amounts of voter fraud, writing a number of tweets criticizing Nevada and Michigan specifically for their recent actions of pushing it.
“State of Nevada ‘thinks’ that they can send out illegal vote by mail ballots, creating a great Voter Fraud scenario for the State and the U.S,” the President tweeted. “They can’t! If they do, ‘I think’ I can hold up funds to the State. Sorry, but you must not cheat in elections.”
State of Nevada “thinks” that they can send out illegal vote by mail ballots, creating a great Voter Fraud scenario for the State and the U.S. They can’t! If they do, “I think” I can hold up funds to the State. Sorry, but you must not cheat in elections. @RussVought45 @USTreasury
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020
Michigan sends absentee ballot applications to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Mitt Romney responded to the President’s recent comments, and defended voting by mail.
“In my state, I’ll bet 90% of us vote by mail. It works very very well and it’s a very Republican state,” he said in comments reported by ABC.
Why is Romney backing a system that is one of the most susceptible systems to voter fraud that exist? As a Brit, I know the problems with it. Pretty much all British electoral fraud comes from our postal votes system. Not only does it potentially give access to your vote to others in your household, which removes the anonymity of the secret ballot and can lead to pressuring to vote a certain way, but anyone working in the postal system also has access to your ballot when it’s on the way to be counted.
Personally, I can’t see any reason why Romney wants vote by mail to go through other than to help Joe Biden get into office. He voted to remove President Trump in his impeachment trial, but that failed, so this is therefore the next best thing!
The post Mitt Romney: Mail Voting ‘Works Very, Very Well’ In Utah appeared first on The Political Insider.
The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday threatened to subpoena Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for documents the State Department provided to two Senate committees investigating former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
In a letter to Pompeo obtained by POLITICO, Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) demanded the department turn over all documents that it already sent to the Senate Homeland Security and Finance committees as part of Senate Republicans’ investigation, which targets the Obama-era State Department in addition to the Democratic presidential candidate’s son. Engel said he was prepared to issue subpoenas if he does not receive the information by June 1.
“I am deeply concerned by what appears to be a partisan misuse of Department of State resources to assist Senate Republicans in a political smear of Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden,” Engel wrote, noting that the department sent documents to the Senate committees just days after President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial wrapped up.
Engel’s letter comes a day after the Senate Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), voted on party lines to authorize a subpoena to Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic public relations firm. Johnson’s panel is probing allegations that the firm sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, to influence the Obama State Department.
Echoing other Democrats, Engel said the allegations are “baseless” and “blatantly political,” and he slammed Pompeo for complying with the GOP senators’ probe after having ignored other House subpoenas, including during the impeachment inquiry last year.
“As the coronavirus spread from overseas and began to ravage American cities, scarce State Department resources were expended on producing documents to advance conspiracy theories damaging to a candidate for president of the United States,” Engel wrote.
Johnson and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Finance Committee, have asserted that their investigations are legitimate exercises of congressional oversight. Democrats have argued that the probes are a misuse of the Senate’s resources and are intended to boost Trump’s reelection chances. They also have said the overall effort advances Russian disinformation, citing Kremlin-aligned sources that are pushing similar claims against the Bidens.
Pompeo has been under intense scrutiny in recent days after he urged the president to fire the State Department’s inspector general, Steve Linick, who was investigating several claims of alleged misconduct by the secretary.