Matt Gaetz? Seriously? Will Idaho’s senators stand up against atrocious nominee? | Opinion
The framers of our Constitution wisely established a brilliant and effective system of checks and balances among the three branches of government.
One of those important checks is the role of the U.S. Senate to “advise and consent” when it comes to members of the president’s cabinet.
Donald Trump, who has a history of and got elected partly for his penchant for “stirring things up” and breaking with standard protocols, is testing the bounds not only of those standard protocols but of credulity with some of the names he’s throwing out as potential cabinet members, not least of which is former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, for U.S. attorney general.
“Are you sh***ing me?” was the response from U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, when told that Trump was putting forth Gaetz, who was under a Department of Justice investigation and is the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation on suspicion of having sex with a minor.
Idaho’s two Republican U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch have an opportunity to do the right thing and execute their constitutional duties as a check on the executive branch.
Unfortunately, too many members of the Republican Party have kowtowed to Trump and his whims, out of fear of drawing Trump’s wrath.
Our own attorney general, Raul Labrador, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, even demeaned himself by dressing himself in a garbage bag after a comic at a Trump rally said Puerto Rico was a “floating pile of garbage.”
Others, having suffered insults from Trump, such as “Little Marco” Rubio and Ted Cruz, whose father Trump suggested was involved in the Kennedy assassination, have somehow set aside their self-respect and laid it at the altar of Donald Trump.
The Republican Party mascot is an elephant, but it has now become a sycophant.
But the stakes have become much higher, now with Republican control of the Senate, likely the House, and since Trump appointed three members to the Supreme Court, the judicial branch has taken a far-right turn, ruling recently that the president of the United States has broad immunity from prosecution when executing duties of the presidency.
This is a dramatic concentration of power with a president who has promised to use that power to make sweeping changes to the federal government, including declaring a national emergency and using the military to round up suspected undocumented immigrants.
It’s time for Republicans like Mike Crapo and Jim Risch to put country ahead of party — or should we say put country ahead of Trump — and put the constitutional mandate of checks and balances ahead of politics.
Certainly the very idea of Gaetz as attorney general of the United States should be a trigger for men like Crapo and Risch. The prospect of U.S. Attorney General Gaetz has to be the furthest thing from the Republican Party that Risch and Crapo have been a part of for the past 50 years.
By their acquiescence, Risch, 81, and Crapo, 73, would be agreeing to brush aside serious allegations of Gaetz having sex with a minor who was under the age of consent, backed up by direct testimony from the alleged victim. Is this the legacy that they want to leave for their granddaughters and great-granddaughters, let alone for Idaho?
Crapo and Risch are in line to become chairmen of the powerful Senate Finance and Foreign Relations committees, respectively.
How they stand up in the face of a Gaetz nomination will be a harbinger for how our senators will act in the face of other potentially dangerous edicts from a Trump White House, such as draconian cuts to Social Security or Medicare, a repeal of the CHIPS Act, political appointments based on a spoils system, mass deportations, a declaration of a national emergency when no such emergency exists, among other yet-unknown actions Trump may take.
Will Crapo and Risch be remembered as good men who did the honorable thing or will they be remembered as good men who said nothing and allowed evil to triumph?