permafrost Loc: Minnesota

On Monday, FBI Director James Comey publicly confirmed that there’s a counter-espionage investigation underway, examining not only Russia’s illegal efforts to help put Donald Trump in the White House, but also whether Team Trump cooperated with Moscow’s scheme. On Tuesday, the confirmation hearing for Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, began in earnest.


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW, 3/21/17, 9:46 PM ET
SCOTUS integrity damaged by GOP stolen seat

Much of the political world is treating these two developments as distinct and unrelated. It was heartening to see Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) take the obvious step of connecting then. The Washington Post reported:
“I’d like to point out that it is the height of irony that Republicans held this Supreme Court seat open for nearly a calendar year while President Obama was in office, but are now rushing to fill the seat for a president whose campaign is under investigation by the FBI,” Schumer said, according to remarks sent out by his office.

Schumer said that, to him, it appeared “unseemly to be moving forward so fast on confirming a Supreme Court Justice with a lifetime appointment” due to the looming FBI investigation, which could potentially last for months or years.
The Democratic leader added, “You can bet that if the shoe was on the other foot – and a Democratic president was under investigation by the FBI – that Republicans would be howling at the moon about filling a Supreme Court seat in such circumstances. After all, they stopped a president who wasn’t under investigation from filling a seat with nearly a year left in his presidency.”

I don’t imagine any fair-minded observer would disagree with this assessment. Donald Trump not only received far fewer votes than his opponent, making it difficult for him to claim that he has a mandate to push a far-right conservative onto the high court, his campaign allegedly may have colluded with a foreign adversary during an attack on our presidential election – an attack that elevated Trump into the Oval Office.

If the partisan dynamic were flipped, we can say with some certainty that Republicans would demand that the FBI investigation be resolved before the president’s Supreme Court nominee is considered for a lifetime appointment. Given the unprecedented GOP abuses surrounding the Merrick Garland nomination, the high court vacancy is itself of dubious legitimacy, but the FBI’s probe raises questions anew about the legitimacy of the president trying to fill that vacancy.

So why not wait until the questions have answers?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) added yesterday on Twitter that FBI Director James Comey testified that Trump’s campaign “is under investigation for collusion with Russia. Lifetime court appointments can wait.”

Politico reported, “The emerging Democratic demand is highly unlikely to gain traction with Senate GOP leaders, who are planning a vote on Gorsuch early next month.” That is, of course, true. But the more Republicans ignore the broader circumstances, the more Democrats have an incentive to simply walk out of the confirmation hearings and deem the process too corrupt to warrant their participation.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

If they really want a slush fund they need to finally give Hillary a job she's qualified for. Treasurer of the slush fund.

Ricko Loc: Florida

Jim-did you possibly mean the "slime" fund ? lol The democrats are trying desperately to assail Gorsuch and he
is out maneuvering them every step of the way. If this charade is not over by week's end believe McConnell
should invoke the NO and vote. Let the whiners stew in their own crap. As for Comey, the lefties are salivating over
the investigation into the Russian connection which will reveal nothing. Conversely, not a peep out of any of them about the only criminal act which was the leak. I wonder how much effort Comey will exert in finding the perpetrator or whether it will be another whitewash ? America First !!!!

Callan

What are all of the Democrat Loony Lefties going to do when they realize that they have bin whipped into a frenzy by a constant barrage of fake news....

archie bunker Loc: Texas

Don't you ever get tired of whining?

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Yea, but it is cold out today... That 40 degree stuff just not coming back up here...

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Where's your global warming when you need it?

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

J,

That is it exactly....

Lousy winter, could not do the winter things for fun.. but will spring ever show up? Heck no..

Like trying to find a cop when you need one..

mongo Loc: TEXAS

Now there's no need to bring the cops into this. Imagine driving around all day and nothing is happening, (that you're aware of).
You get hungry and stop for lunch. You had to wait because of long lines but finally get your meal.
You sit down to enjoy a 10 min. lunch break, but, as soon as you get that sandwich up to your mouth for that first bite, your radio
goes off and there's a crime in progress on the other side of town that requires all units.
You drop everything, rush out the door to your cruiser and respond. When you arrive, you get waved off, and later advised there was a cat
stuck in a tree that was reported as a hanging. Go figure!

SEMPER FI

Louie27 Loc: Peoria, AZ

James Comey never said any of those things. You are so far out of this universe and you and the other liberals have produced no correlation to what has been said. You are just day dreaming about getting rid of President Trump. It seems to me we should talking about the dealing with the Russians by the Clintons. As far as the selection for the Supreme Court, why should their be a delay in the approval for the appointee? Until President Trump appointed Judge Gorsuch I do not believe they had a personal relationship. You Liberals lost the election, now get over it and lets start being at least partly civil with all of Presidents appointees and members of his cabinet.

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Lou,

that is exactly what Comey said.. What do you think he said???

Putin hates Hillary, that is why the Russians colluded with trump.


Obama had the right to appoint the SS judge. Congress refused to even hold a hearing. Do you think any rational person would now cooperate with those who stole the judge appointment for themselves??

I do want the Dems to be as civil and cooperate as well as the congress was toward Obama for 8 years..

I have worked a spent money to that end..

Nutter Loc: Fly Over Zone

Remember it was Biden that set the precedence of no Supreme Court Justice in an election year!

Yes the FBI has had an investigation of Trump since July but have found no evidence of any collusion with Russia.

Now we are finding out that Trump and his staff had been under surveillance since the election.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Petey's never heard a liberal lie he didn't like.

Callan

Maybe, just maybe, we will finally see the full truth about the slimy distortion of facts and the uncovering of illegal surveillance of American citizens. Again, just maybe, we will see prosecutions and some jail time for Democrat political operatives.

Steve700

you I guess you are lying liberal media hasn't been telling you that they found out that Obama had been listening in on the goings-on in the Trump Towers. If you knew and understood him like I do you would have known that in all probability he was doing that. Come on now, certainly you are not naïve enough to believe that he is some kind of ethical law-abiding guy.