Dem
51
GOP
49
It is not a secret that many House Republicans are using their investigative powers to settle scores and to score political points, and not so much to do the work of the people. In case one needed a particularly clear indication of that fact, it was provided this week.
At the moment, the House has a special task force charged with looking at the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and exactly how security broke down so badly. This is a very good thing for the House to investigate, exactly the sort of thing that the members should be using those powers for. And the task force is bipartisan, with seven Republicans and five Democrats.
Here, however, is the issue, at least for those being guided primarily by political considerations. The FBI just affirmed, yet again, that they can identify "no definitive ideology" on the part of the shooter. It certainly appears that he was just generally angry/lonely, and was in search of attention and fame. He would have just as readily shot at a Democrat, a prominent celebrity, an athlete, the Pope, etc. Trump just happened to be the opportunity that presented itself.
What this means is that, despite drooling over the possibility, Republicans aren't going to be able to weaponize this against Democrats. Team Trump won't be able to say, "See? With their criticisms of Trump, this is what the Democrats have done. They have blood on their hands!" This being the case, several Republican members of the assassination task force appear to have lost interest. There was a rather important meeting this week, on the site of the assassination attempt, so that members of the task force could get the lay of the land. And while all five Democrats showed up, only three Republicans did. Reps. Pat Fallon (R-TX), Mark Green (R-TN), Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Michael Waltz (R-FL) apparently had better things to do.
Thus far, despite extensive coverage of their decision, none of the four absentees has explained themselves. If they had some legitimate reason for missing something that critical, like a sick family member, they presumably would have shared that. It would also be unusual for 57.1% of the GOP members to all be unavoidably detained at the exact same time, especially when 0.0% of the Democratic members were. This all supports the inference that the Republicans aren't seeing the point of the investigation, if all it's going to produce is the truth. (Z)