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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.
The defund double-standard strategy is easily found in the Trump playbook from Italy in the 30’s. So please, everybody, stop the “unprecedented” mantra.
The word unprecedented doesn’t appear in the article?
Where are all those old “Defund the Police” placards when those Republicans really need them?
The irony is that all those left leaning calls for defunding the police were really calls to move non law enforcement functions to entities better equipped and trained to handle them (in spite of one of the dumbest slogan in history). These Republicans simply want a get out of jail free card.
Ah, no
Some where as you state, others were seeking a police free future
Don’t defund them, just change how they operate. Acting like concerned parents are a problem is stupid for the FBI to get involved with. Having Hunter Biden’s laptop for months yet denying they looked at is stupid. Arresting Mark Houck with 20 armed agents in front of his 7 children is stupid. The atrocities the Biden driven FBI got involved with the past few years is embarrassing and a change is necessary.
In other words, weaponize the FBI, but only against the people you don’t like. Make them into a sort of pro-conservative political police, going after any non-rightist target while giving a pass to MAGA-type conservatives.
BTW, before you rantply, I’ve read about Mark Houck. I think a continued pest at women’s clinics who goes around shoving old men (and admitting that he did so) should not be surprised at being prosecuted criminally.
“Biden driven FBI” “Past few years”
I guess we now know what Biden was doing after January 2017: Driving the FBI.
Anyone who knows the political preferences of FBI personnel, knows they lean Republican.
Unfortunately for Trump they also lean anti criminal and that is where the MAGA rub is.
The VAST majority of FBI personnel are dedicated public servants doing their best to uphold their oath of public service. Attacking them in the name of Donald Trump is as unpatriotic as one can get with Jim Jordan as Exhibit A.
A wonder Uncle Joe is able to get on with “driving” the FBI to commit atrocities, what with his supposed advanced dementia and all. Oh wait, (checks notes), that doesn’t apply for this narrative, sorry, carry on…
Not sure what the right is hoping to accomplish with Hunter’s laptop. Even if there’s evidence of a “Biden crime family,” the Mueller investigation clearly demonstrated the DOJ will not indict a sitting president. As long as Biden is in office, he’s untouchable by the feds – just like Trump was. Given Trump’s frontrunner status for 2024 & the unlikelihood he’ll attract new voters, Biden will win reelection & remain immune until his successor is sworn in in 2029.
“Not sure what the right is hoping to accomplish with Hunter’s laptop.”
Two things:
1. Embarrassing President Biden; and
2. Getting something to use for a “wuddabout” defense of a Trump candidacy.
There is no substance. Substance eludes these people.
“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.
“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,” [Rep. Angie] Craig said.
Just more examples of the Democratic rhetorical fecklessness that has allowed the Republican party to run roughshod over our country. The quest for authoritarian power that the Republican party serves ruined the Supreme Court over a generation ago. Here come our Democratic leaders to frame this new and quite superfluous further evidence of Clarence Thomas’s corruption as posing unique damage to an otherwise healthy institution. In doing so, they just help to set the court’s deep-seated ideological decadence as the new normal.
Georgia, the ice is broken, on to the meaty indictments please.
In GA, it’s looking like a RICO case that will indict far more than just DJT. Putting that together takes time. As they say, the wheels of justice grind slowly. But extremely fine.
I am quite certain that the phrase “personal hospitality” cannot be read to encompass the luxury trips and travel that the unethical Clarence T and his conservative activist wife Ginny enjoyed for decades as the “guests” of this megadonor Godfather. Obviously Thomas should be impeached and removed from office. That’s what a serious and politically functioning nation would do.
At least Tina Smith understands that the only remedy to combat this democratically-illegitimate Repub Supreme Court is expansion to dilute the effect of the three Trump/McConnell appointees. But a good first step would be for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on this latest revelation of unprecedented unethical behavior by a sitting Justice.
And if the Dems do not see fit to take even this (obviously necessary) step in showing how corrupt the Repub Supreme Court has become, then they really are as feckless as Mr Holtman states.
“if the Dems do not see fit to take even this (obviously necessary) step in showing how corrupt the Repub Supreme Court has become, then they really are as feckless as Mr Holtman states.”
Impeachment happens in the House, so for now it is up to Speaker McCarthy & the GOP. The Senate could hold hearings to publicize the issue, but have no power to remove a justice until they’re impeached by the House.
Having said that, I am not arguing against Dem fecklessness.
I’m well aware that impeachment commences in the House. I merely said Clarence T should be impeached, not that McCarthy’s deeply silly and unserious House of Chaos and Disorder would ever do it. But a promised impeachment and senate trial of Clarence should become a plank in all future Dem platforms.