Kevin McCarthy loved the Benghazi investigation and 'swore' Trump was on Putin's payroll. But now he's singing a different tune.
With his party soon to be out of power, soon-to-be House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) wants Congress to continue to abdicate its constitutional oversight duties.
In a recent interview with Fox News, McCarthy had the audacity to warn Democrats against investigating Trump when they assume the majority in January.
"It looks like what they're going to focus on is more investigations," McCarthy said, adding, "I think America is too great a nation to have such a small agenda."
This position is quite the flip-flop for McCarthy. Before the 2016 election, McCarthy was ecstatic about the GOP-led sham investigation into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi.
WATCH: @BillHemmer spoke with @GOPLeader about @RepAdamSchiff's latest comments on President Trump and the final items on the House @GOP's agenda #nine2noon pic.twitter.com/IwDX8MCUnq
— America's Newsroom (@AmericaNewsroom) December 10, 2018
Of course, McCarthy did not care about any facts coming out of the investigation; he only wanted to waste taxpayer money to score cheap political points against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. He even admitted as much, telling Sean Hannity in 2015, "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping."
In 2016, McCarthy was caught on tape accusing Trump of being on Putin's payroll. "There's two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump," McCarthy said in 2016. (Rohrabacher is less to worry about now, since he lost his midterm election to Democrat Harley Rouda.)
If McCarthy was serious about his allegation — on the tape, McCarthy emphasized his conviction by adding "Swear to God" — you'd think he would welcome a full and thorough investigation, not the laughably shoddy work of Trump lackey Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). Nunes' investigation, as head of the Intelligence Committee, was so lame that even other Republicans were embarrassed.
Unfortunately for McCarthy and Republicans, voters flooded the polls during the 2018 midterms to put Nancy Pelosi and Democrats back in control of the House.
Speaker-to-be Pelosi has already outlined a voting rights and pro-democracy agenda for HR1, the symbolically important first piece of legislation introduced by the majority party. New House Intel Chair Adam Schiff (R-CA) has set his sights on Trump's "compromised" relationship with Russia. And incoming Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) told reporters that Trump "was at the center of a massive fraud against the American people," and vowed to look into such allegations.
McCarthy better get used to it.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
