Iowa’s Congressional Delegation Gives Trump Yet Another Pass on His Latest Scandal
Iowa delegation chooses partisan pandering to Trump over honoring fallen military heroes
Members of Iowa’s all-Republican congressional delegation have once again - with their silence - shown Iowans who they really are in the wake of the latest Trump scandal, and just how warped their priorities have bcome.
Apparently no one in Iowa’s congressional delegation is bothered much by Trump’s steady stream of scandals and crimes; they don’t seem to care about his lack of character; and they obviously - given the latest scandal pass they just granted him - don’t think honoring fallen warriors and their actively grieving families is much of a priority, despite what they claim in their speeches.
At least not a priority that outranks their on-going subservience to Trump.
The latest Trump scandal which does not much bother US Reps. Marionette Miller-Meeks (R IA 01), Ashley Hinton (R IA 02), Zack Nunn (R IA 03) and Randy Feenstra (R IA 04); nor Senators Chuck Grassley (R IA) and Joni Ernst (R IA) is Trump’s August 26 campaign stunt at Arlington National Cemetery.
The basic facts you’ve no doubt read elsewhere by now, but the basic components of it are as follows:
a visit to Arlington National to stage a prohibited political event.
a likely illegal campaign video of the visit which makes Trump’s political point;
a verbal and physical assault by Trump campaign aides on a female cemetery official who tried to enforce the cemetery’s “no politics” rules and its “no photographs” rule in one of the most sensitive sections of the cemetery where active burials of fallen warriors occur frequently and families of the fallen grieve daily;
After the event, Trump campaign spokespersons attacked the cemetery worker as”despicable,” and “demented” and claimed she was having a “mental health issue.”
Arlington National Cemetery stood behind the cemetery official, as did the U.S. Army. In a rare rebuke, both said the cemetery worker was doing her job and doing it professionally.
The incident was serious enough that a police report was made, though the cemetery staffer who was roughed up declined to press charges.
Trump - it’s his expected and predictable “M.O.” by now - denied any knowledge of any wrong doing, or even that he knows the campaign staffers - his OWN campaign staffers - who were involved.
It does not take a political genius to understaand that it doesn’t get much worse than desecrating the final resting place of thousands of US military heroes, shoving and verbally attacking a cemetery worker for trying to ensure that the cemetery rules are followed, and whose job it is daily to see that the fallen warriors who rest in peace in Arlington National Cemetery are perpetually honored, not turned into campaign props.
For Iowa’s all-Republican congressional delegation, however, this desecration is a desecration not even worth mentioning.
None of them joined US Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) in asking the Secretary of the Army for a full report on the incident.
According to The Hill newspaper, Raskin, who chairs the U.S. House Oversight Committee, sent a letter asking Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth for a full report on the Trump incident at Arlington.
Specifically, Raskin asked for a full report, including whether the former president’s staff “violated federal law or Cemetery rules and whether the Trump campaign informed the families of service members buried at the Cemetery that their gravestones would be used in Mr. Trump’s political campaign ads.”
A reasonable, appropriate - and sadly - now necessary request.
It’s just not one any Iowan in Congress apparently believes is needed. Their silence reveals where their priorities lie. It essentially gives Trump a pass on yet another, but this time most odious scandal.
None of Iowa’s congressional delegation have even called out Trump for dishonoring fallen soldiers and veterans with a political stunt surrounded by their graves.
Not one has even hinted that Trump should apologize for bringing politics into the nation’s most hallowed national military cemetery, or for violating the privacy of grieving families in “Section 60” where photographs are strictly prohibited to protect the privacy of families grieving recent losses.
Not one Iowan in Congress has even dared to suggest that the conduct and comments of Trump’s staff during and after the event was out of line, or that they all - Trump and his staff - owe the cemetery worker and the families of the fallen - an apology.
Granted, Iowa’s Republicans in Congress have a pretty high bar for these kinds of things. They belong to a political party that has grown famous for its abandonment of actual governing to instead pursue purely politically motivated congressional investigations.
Republicans in Congress once even gleefully held hearings to investigate President Bill Clinton’s annual Christmas card list.
They showed us just how high their bar really is for confronting Trump’s wrong doing, corruption and crimes - holding him accountable - when all Iowa Republilcans serving in the House at the time, and the state’s two Republican Senators all voted against a formal, bi-partisan, investigation of Trump’s attempted January 6, 2021 coup.
They gave him a pass on that, too.
Their subservience to Trump always seems to triumph over what is right, what is good for our democracy, and now tragically, even what honors our fallen military heroes. If it’s a choice between any of that, and Trump, this. group goes with Trump every time.
Apparently they think that is, politically, a virtue.
I think history will reach a very different conclusion.
Iowa’s congressional delegation becomes culpable themselves for Trump’s scandals and nonstop corruption when they enable him - time after time after time - by saying nothing and doing nothing to stop him, or at least to try to convince him to re-think his ways.
Are they likely to change him by doing so?
Not likely, not at Trump’s age. Not given his lifetime track record of cutting corners, cheating vendors, frauc, misogyny and general bigotry.
But Iowa Republicans in Congress could help protect Iowa from the stench of corruption that settles in over the state when its congressional delegation - every one of them! - accepts Trump’s odious behavior with their cowering silence.
Trump dishonors himself when he dishonors our fallen warriors and those who serve to preserve and honor their memory.
Unless and until Iowa’s congressional delegation speaks up forcefully and publicly against it, that shame is their shame as well.
I kept looking, futilely, all week to see what Iowa’s elected leaders would say about this invasion of U.S. soldiers’ final resting place for personal political gain. Even war horse Joni was silent. Their fealty to Trump apparently supersedes their integrity. Thanks for your summary.
Exactly! Thank you, Barry.