Collateral Damage from Gaetz Debacle Touches Even Iowa's Grassley & Ernst
Iowa & the nation needed real leadership from them, not channelling of Howard Cosell
The nomination of former US Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to be US Attorney General is probably the worst cabinet nomination ever made a president. That anyone supported it, even briefly, should be a career ender. It was that bad.
While it is well established that the MAGA crowd is willing to overlook or forget anything about Trump’s mountains of crimes and other transgressions, it doesn’t mean the rest of us should or that history will.
The damage there - to Trump, his incoming administration, members of the House and Senate who backed the nomination or remained silent, and to the Republican brand - is real.
The book on Gaetz is widely known at this point, and need not be retold here in any detail. Suffice it to say, it includes credible accusations - including eye witness accounts - of drug use, multiple women paid for sex, and even sex with a 17 year old minor, which - if true - would add statutory rape to the list.
The fact that he is also credibly described as having shared smart phone videos and photographs of his “conquests” with colleagues on the floor of the US House of Representatives adds a special, even worse stomach churning “ick” to his story.
Not exactly the resume one looks for in the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
While many were stunned by the utter, brazen stupidity of Trump’s nomination of Gaetz, plenty of other Republicans went right along with it, supported it, and attacked those who raised red flags.
Others laid low and said little or nothing, hoping to stay out of the line of fire, so to speak, and allow both Gaetz supporters and opponents to think they were on the same side.
Frankly, this was a matter that required “leaders” in Trump’s party - which will control both chambers in Congress next year and the White House - to step up and object, loudly clearly and often. Many - most, in fact - did not.
In my view, the fallout - from thinking Americans and from history - won’t differentiate much between Gaetz boosters and the crowd that laid low. The failure of both groups to do the right thing was monumental.
Then there is the group who tried to play it both ways. This group includes Iowa’s two Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA). The Senate must confirm a preident’s cabinet nominees. That’s where where leadership was needed most last week, and sadly, often found lacking, including from Iowa’s two senators.
Iowa and the nation had reason to expect much more and much better from both Grassley and Ernst. Neither delivered what the moment required.
Both avoided direct answers to important questions, hiding behind “political speak.”
They gave ambiguous, vague answers, open to widely different interpretations, with the obvious hope that most listeners would hear what they wanted to hear. Or that allowed the senators to later claim they actually meant whatever the “winning” view turned out to be.
The critical moment and defining issue for both came when they were asked by reporters if the bi-partisan House Ethics Committee report on its bi-partisan investigation of Gaetz should be made available to the Senate or released.
After a lengthy investigation of the allegations against Gaetz, the committee had completed its work. The report - with findings from that investigation, including eye witness testimony - and the committee’s bipartisan conclusions was described as days away from release. It has also been described as quite damaging to Gaetz, essentially confirming it all.
Then Trump nominated Gaetz for Attorney General. Gaetz resigned from the House, and release of the report of an investigation of someone no longer a member of the House was thrown into question -though there is more than one precedent for doing so.
Both Iowa Senators. “whiffed” with their answers to that simple question. Both avoided direct answers to simple, straight forward questions that needed and deserved simple and direct answers.
It was a simple “yes” or “no” question which deserved a simple “yes” or “no” answer. Which, of course, neither was willing to deliver.
Grassley - the incoming Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committe which will conduct confirmation hearings for Trump’s Attorney General nominee, the longest serving U.S. Senator in the current Senate, the senior Republican in the Senate and therefore likely to become the Senate President Pro Tempore, at first said, no the Senate didn’t need to see the House report. The Senate Judiciary Committee and its staff will handle it all just fine.
Anyone who watched Grassley preside over the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for now Justice Brett Kavanaugh can be excused for doubting that.
Grassley was asked several times last Monday whether he would, as Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, demand to see the House report. He refused to answer. Several times. He also refused to say whether the committee, as part of its confirmation hearing process would interview cooperating witnesses the House Ethics Committee interviewed. He refused to answer.
As opposition to Gaetz continued to grow, Grassley on Tuesday changed his tune slightly, just enough to let some conclude he’d changed his view - which he hadn’t.
“I would suggest if they want speedy consideration of this….it would help faster consideration, the extent to which they could make as much available as they can,” Grassley told reporters.
Note - Senator Grassley is not demanding release of the report with this answer, nor even asking for it. He’s playing Howard Cosell, describing what he thinks will happen if they do make it available. It would speed things up. That’s no answer to the question he was asked.
But even then, he leaves the door open for partial release, by saying things would move faster if they could make “as much available as they can.”
That’s a far cry from the Chuck Grassley of old, and certainly from the Chuck Grassley of even last year who in a fit of reckless partisanship demanded and then released raw investigative files of an FBI investigation of bogus, made up, previously debunked bribery allegations against President Biden.
All done in the name of transparency for the American people, of course.
Transparency that Grassley apparently does not think Americans are entitled to have when a Republican president-elect is trying to make an alleged statutory rapist, drug user and sex trafficker the next Attorney General.
Joni Ernst is also a surprise to find in the collateral damage pile on this matter.
After all, she helped lead an effort to prevent sexual assault in the military and hold those who commit it accountable. Yet, disappointingly, she chose to hide behind “political speak” when asked whether the House Ethics Committee should make its report available to the Senate.
She was still running for a Senate Republican leadership post at the time, so that may explain why she trimmed her sails, but the best she could muster was that it would be helpful if they did.
Again - another Howard Cosell answer - she predicted what would happen if the report was made available to the Senate, rather than giving a straight and direct answer to a direct question. Whether you wanted the report released or not, it was easy to conclude Ernst agreed with you with her ambiguous non-answer.
While the Gaetz nomination is where it rightfully belongs now - in the trash can of history - there are lessons to be learned from it. We should not simply move on, but instead, absorb those lessons.
Many so called leaders of the Republican Party could not bring themselves to call for the release of a report on a completed investigation of a man by nominated by a president-elect to be the chief law enforcement officer of the United States who has been credibly accused of illegal drug use, sex trafficking and statutory rape.
While the nomination itself is most troubling, the fact that so many in a position to protect the nation from that nomination by availing themselves of all the facts as they considered it during the confirmation process - especially readily available facts collected and judged by a bipartisan investigatory panel of their peers - chose not to do so is shocking and disturbing.
Iowans deserve Senators who will stand up forcibly, early, and loudly when such an ill advised, hideous even, nomination is made.
Iowans deserve principled opposition, not shifting support or evasion from their senators.
Iowans have every right to expect that their senators will not go silent or vague in order to make themselves purposely misunderstood.
At the very least, Iowans should be able to expect straight and strong answers about getting the all the evidence, and the best evidence to weigh the allegations against such a nominee.
Senators Grassley and Ernst failed Iowa on this one. Given Grassley’s unique position in the Senate, he failed the nation as well.
PASSINGS: Word came Saturday night of the death of former Oklahoma US Senator - and third place finisher in the 1976 Iowa Democratic Caucuses - Fred R. Harris at the age of 94. Harris holds a special place in Iowa history, with his surprisingly strong showing in the 1976 Iowa Democratic Caucuses, and his reaction to that unexpectedly strong finish.
Harris finished third in a crowded field, behind former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter who won, and Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana who finished second. (Technically, “Undecided” actually “won” the caucuses that year, but that fact is usually ignored, as the Democratic presidential nomination and delegate selection process which began in Iowa for nearly 50 years aims to nominate a person, not a category.)
The “morning after” the caucuses 48 years ago, Harris invited a few supporters, staff and reporters to breakfast at a small cafe in south Des Moines, where he conducted an informal press conference to discuss the results. I was among those who attended. It was at that informal session that Senator Harris delivered one of the best political lines I’ve ever heard: “Iowa started the winnowing out process and we’ve been winnowed in.”
Classic.
Thanks for the smile at the end of your column with the story about Senator Harris. For a brief moment the feeling of doom and gloom I have with republicans in charge left me!
It’s back now. We are doomed if Senate republicans refuse to find their moral compass and their spines. I have no hope that will happen in the House. And the White House? Yeah, right.
Meh. We know who Grassley is and what to expect. Ditto Ernst. Though she might be miffed she didn’t get a leadership position, but all the more reason to suck up.