WASHINGTON – Republican lawmakers decried, in the strongest terms, the indictment and arraignment this week of former President Donald Trump, but few echoed Trump’s call to defund the Justice Department and the FBI.
The day after pleading not guilty in New York to 34 felony counts of falsifying business record, Trump posted “Republicans in Congress should defund the DOJ and FBI until they come to their senses.” That was an apparent response to the Justice Department’s investigation of whether he incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and his handling of classified documents at his personal residence in Florida.
Minnesota GOP lawmakers who decried Trump’s indictment have remained silent on the former president’s call to strip funding from federal law enforcement.
On Tuesday, the day Trump was arraigned, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, for instance, tweeted “Today is a historic low for our nation. The Democratic Party has proven there is nothing they won’t do to hold onto power – even if it means weaponizing our justice system to target a political opponent.”
The next day Emmer also participated in a ride-along Wednesday with the St. Cloud Police Department, observing operations from a squad car before returning to the station to meet with officers during a shift change.
“Today’s ride-along emphasized the urgent need to support our police,” Emmer said in a statement.
While Trump’s calls for stripping funding from the Justice Department made some GOP congressional leaders worry that it undercut their campaign to portray Democrats as soft on crime, a few of the former president’s allies agreed with the former president. One was House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who also called for cutting money for the Justice Department and FBI.
“We control the power of the purse … We’re gonna have to look at the appropriations process and limit funds going to some of these agencies, particularly the ones engaging in the most egregious behavior,” Jordan said on Fox News.
Democrats, meanwhile, were mostly subdued about Trump’s indictment and arraignment, despite the inner joy many must feel.
“How great is it to come to a political rally where we talk about solutions and the future,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at an event with President Biden in Fridley this week.
The event, at engine maker Cummins, Inc.’s facilities, was meant to promote Biden’s clean energy initiatives.
Clarence Thomas’ trips stoke calls for Supreme Court ethics reform
Some lawmakers, including several from Minnesota, are demanding action after a ProPublica report published Thursday detailed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ undisclosed ties to megadonor Harlan Crow.
For Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., the solution was clear.
“Clarence Thomas has proven what we’ve suspected all along — the Supreme Court is beholden to right-wing corporate interest groups and billionaire mega-donors,” Smith tweeted. “The Court is broken. The constitutional remedy is clear — expand the Court.”
ProPublica reported Thomas, a leading conservative on the high court, “has accepted luxury trips virtually every year” from Crow for more than two decades without reporting them. Thomas’ failure to disclose the trips appears to violate a law requiring judges, members of Congress and other federal officials to report most gifts, including private jet flights.
Judges are prohibited from accepting gifts from anyone with business before the court. But until the rules were revised last month, there was no clear definition of an exemption from disclosure for gifts considered “personal hospitality.” Crow told the Washington Post he was merely offering Thomas, and his wife Virginia, “personal hospitality.”
Democratic lawmakers seized on the ProPublica report to demand stricter ethics rules for federal judges.
“The justices on the Supreme Court must be held to the highest ethical standard so the American people can have confidence they are making decisions based on the facts and the law,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. “We need an enforceable clear code of ethics that applies to the Supreme Court.
Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, co-sponsor of a House bill that would require the Judicial Conference of the United States to issue a code of conduct that applies to the Supreme Court, also called for stricter ethics.
“The American people must have confidence in the integrity and independence of the Supreme Court, and it is incumbent upon Congress to put a stop to this corruption,” Craig said. “It is far past time for the Supreme Court to adhere to a code of conduct and I’ll keep pushing for government ethics reform.”
Last year, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4th District, demanded Thomas resign after, saying the justice and his wife both promoted and attempted to cover up Trump’s false claims of a stolen presidential election.
“The latest reporting of these privately-funded trips, undisclosed to the public for decades, only deepens these concerns” said a McCollum spokesperson.
Meanwhile, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y, was among the first lawmakers that called for Thomas’s impeachment.
“This is beyond party or partisanship. This degree of corruption is shocking – almost cartoonish. Thomas must be impeached,” she said.
The offices of Minnesota’s Republican lawmakers did not respond to requests for comment.
0 Commentaires