It's Time for Jeff Flake to Put Up or Shut Up
The other day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wrote a universally reviled op-ed in which he asked whether or not the newly energized congressional Democrats would be willing to work with him. This caused a lot of people simultaneously to type, "Merrick Fcking Garland!" immediately into the electric Twitter machine. And, on Wednesday, McConnell lived down to everyone's lowest expectations.
Departing Arizona Republican Jeff Flake and Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware brought up a bill they had crafted that would have protected Robert Mueller's investigation from interference from above. Flake tried to get the bill passed by unanimous consent.
McConnell objected.
Bill...dead.
Clearly, McConnell wants Mueller to continue to hear footsteps on behalf of the White House. From The Hill:
Flake, speaking after McConnell's objection, knocked Trump's rhetoric on the Mueller probe, which is investigating Russian election interference and potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. "With the firing of the attorney general ... the president now has this investigation in his sights and we all know it," Flake said from the Senate floor. He added that Trump had accused Mueller of a witch hunt "without basis or fact."
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The Senate Judiciary Committee passed legislation that would protect Mueller, or any other special counsel, in the event he is fired, but the bill has stalled amid opposition from GOP leadership. The bill would codify Justice Department regulations that say only a senior DOJ official can fire Mueller or another special counsel. It would give a special counsel an "expedited review" of their firing. If a court determines that it wasn't for "good cause," the special counsel would be reinstated.
Flake previously said that, if his bill didn't get a floor vote, which it did not, he would not vote for any judicial nominees who came before the Senate Judiciary Committee, making the confirmation of said nominees difficult, if not impossible. We shall see if he backs that up by actually doing it, but he repeated that threat on the floor on Wednesday after McConnell killed the bill. Jeff Flake has nothing to lose, but that's been true for a while.
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