Senate Majority Whip Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) blocked a bipartisan resolution of support for the intelligence community on the Russia scandal.
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Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said before asking for unanimous consent for a bipartisan resolution that he introduced with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) that would show Senate support for the intelligence community, “Mr. President, empirical objective truth has taken a beating for the last 18 months. I said from this pulpit in January that the dissemination of untruths has the effect of eroding trust in our vital institutions and conditioning the public to no longer trust them. As we saw in Helsinki on Monday, entertaining the untruths of a dictator has the same effect. Passing this resolution will let our constituents, the administration, our allies, and our adversaries know that here in the Senate we do not entertain the deceit of dictators. The truth is Russia interfered in our elections in 2016, and these efforts continue. Accepting that truth is the first step in preparing us to confront this malign activity. Let’s pass this resolution. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 583. I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.”
Sen. John Cornyn objected, and used the regular order excuse, “Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me first thank the senator from Arizona and the senator from Delaware for expressing all of our concern about Russian interference in the 2016 election. It’s absolutely clear they did, and the president has said as much on a number of occasions. Now, I agree in Helsinki he was less than clear about that, but he came back and said that he’d misspoke and reaffirmed his earlier position — reaffirmed his earlier position that, yes, the Russia government had attempted to interfere in the election, although nobody disputes the fact that they were successful in changing a single vote or affecting the outcome. Ironically, the very same investigation which has made clear that the Russians did attempt to disrupt the election has also made clear there is no evidence of collusion that anybody has uncovered to date. So my concern is with — with this resolution is that it is purely a symbolic act, and what we need to do is not just offer symbolic resolutions on the floor; we need to do the hard work that senators have to do through the regular order.”
Instead of standing with America, Senate Republicans stood with Trump and Putin
Cornyn’s regular order excuse was nonsense. This was a resolution that only stated support for the intelligence community. Senate Republicans are now arguing that they need to research whether or not to support the American intelligence community.
The Senate passes symbolic resolutions all of the time.
There is no need for research when it comes to supporting the country that Senators have taken an oath for.
Republicans could have supported the intelligence community and the United States of America. Instead, they sided with Trump and Putin. History will not be kind to Senators like John Cornyn who betrayed their country to protect a president.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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