Trump Attacks Key Senate Adviser in Crazed Demand for Voter ID Law |
Trump Attacks Key Senate Adviser in Crazed Demand for Voter ID Law
Donald Trump has decided the Senate parliamentarian is standing in his way.
The president has turned his aim against the Senate parliamentarian amid his broiling quarrel with the Republican Party.
Donald Trump publicly lashed out against Elizabeth MacDonough Wednesday, writing on Truth Social that the upper chamber’s nonpartisan adviser should be thrown out because she was appointed by a Democrat years ago, and because of her staunch opposition to including bits and pieces of the SAVE Act in budget reconciliation bills—a position she is required to take by virtue of her job.
“Over the years, she has been brutal to Republicans, but not so to the Dumocrats—So why has she not been replaced?” Trump wrote. “There are many fair people who would be qualified for that vital job.
“The Republicans play a very soft game compared to the Dumocrats. It is their single biggest disadvantage in politics. The Dumocrats cheat, lie, and steal, especially when it comes to Votes in Elections, but stick together, whereas the Republicans allow the Elizabeth MacDonoughs of the World to stay in power, and brutalize us,” Trump continued.
MacDonough became the first woman to serve as Senate parliamentarian in 2012, after she was appointed by then–Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada. In his post, Trump incorrectly claimed that MacDonough was appointed by former President Barack Obama, although she was hired during his second term.
The Senate parliamentarian’s role is to advise lawmakers on both chambers’ rules and procedures, and to review spending packages for line items that the Senate cannot make good on. She is also required to oppose policy-oriented provisions in reconciliation bills, a regulation known as the “Byrd rule.”
Yet MacDonough earned the ire of the president over the weekend for doing exactly that, when she nixed the last line item in the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill: a $1 billion allowance for security funding for Trump’s White House ballroom.
She ruled that the funding provision could not be included as it violated budget reconciliation rules in its current form, an outcome that surprised no one on either side of the aisle, reported Fox News.
Trump was so irate about MacDonough’s decision, however, that he reportedly phoned Senate Majority Leader John Thune to fire her. Thune was not responsive to the request.
“We’re going through a process that we go through every time we have a reconciliation bill and the people on both sides are mad at the parliamentarian,” Thune told NOTUS Tuesday, clarifying that he would not consider firing MacDonough. “That’s been true.”
Thune’s spokesperson Ryan Wrasse said in a social media post over the weekend that the party would continue to revise the language of the legislation until it earned MacDonough’s approval. “None of this is abnormal during a Byrd process,” Wrasse wrote Saturday.
Apparently unsatisfied with Thune’s response, Trump has brought his attacks against MacDonough into broad daylight, offering up her continued employment to the court of public opinion.
In the same lengthy Truth Social post, Trump urged Republicans to “kill the filibuster” (something that the party will likely never do) and pass the SAVE Act, the voter restriction bill that was shelved earlier this month.
“If we don’t pass at least one of these two provisions quickly, you will never see another Republican President again,” Trump wrote, going on to suggest that Democrats will henceforth be able to create two additional states out of Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. He also claimed that Democrats would pack the Supreme Court with as many as 21 justices and eliminate the filibuster anyway.
“Get smart and tough Republicans, or you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!” Trump concluded.
For all his bellyaching, the cost of Trump’s White House ballroom project has vastly exceeded his initial projections. Last summer, Trump told the American public that the renovation would cost $200 million and be paid for entirely by private donations. In the months since, Trump has tacked on extra construction to the site and doubled its construction expenses to $400 million.
The price tag grew to $1 billion when Republicans offered to ramp up security at the site, offering taxpayer dollars to foot the bill in the wake of another assassination attempt on the president’s life last month.
Jan. 6 Police Officers Sue Trump Over His $1.8 Billion Slush Fund
Law enforcement officers who protected the Capitol on January 6 are suing to block Trump’s slush fund.
Police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, 2021, are suing the Trump administration over its creation of a $1.776 billion slush fund for President Trump’s allies who claim they were unfairly targeted.
The lawsuit, filed by former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and current Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges in U.S. District Court, alleges that the fund is illegal and violates the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which states the government can’t pay debts “incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States.” They note that the fund could be used to pay the rioters, and also fund violent organizations.
“If allowed to begin making payments, the fund will directly finance the violent operations of rioters, paramilitaries, and their supporters who threatened plaintiffs’ lives that day, and continue to do so,” the officers’ lawyers wrote in the legal filing. “Militias like the Proud Boys will use money from the fund to arm and equip themselves. The fund will grant their [past] acts of violence legal imprimatur.”
The plaintiffs are asking for a federal judge to declare the fund unlawful, to block officials from setting it up, and to reverse any payments that have already been made. The lawsuit alleges that creating the fund also broke federal law, as the government can only settle lawsuits after the attorney general declares that such a payment “is in the interest of the United States.”
“The payment of $1.776 billion into the Anti-Weaponization Fund to settle Trump v. IRS was patently not ‘in the interest of the United States,’” the lawsuit states. “Rather, it was a misappropriation of taxpayer funds orchestrated by the President to reward his allies and the rioters who committed violence in his name.”
It will be interesting to see where this lawsuit goes, and whether it reaches the Supreme Court, which may or may not rule in favor of the president. One hopes that it would see the legal problems with a fund that the president can spend on people who break the law in his name.
Democrats Move to Subpoena Top Officials Behind Trump Slush Fund
Democrats are prepared to fight to stop Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for his friends and allies.
Democrats are doing what they can to stop President Donald Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department and his self-serving use of taxpayer money.
On Wednesday morning, Representative........