New York Post and Real Clear Investigations reporter Paul Sperry made some very good observations on Twitter Thursday:
BREAKING: GOP Sen. Burr delays releasing Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation report clearing Trump of collusion until end of summer
What's pt of continuing Senate probe if Mueller exonerated Trump? It's clear Warner, Dems really run SSCIhttps://t.co/YMofHNPUm1
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) April 4, 2019
While House Dems subpoena AG & shake down IRS for POTUS tax returns, Senate Republicans asleep @ switch. Zzzz. Sen Johnson has 0 SpyGate hearings & never gave statement on Mueller exoneration. Burr not releasing SSCI report till August. Graham on TV, but no hearings, no subpoenas
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) April 4, 2019
Indeed. While Democrats harass the Trump White White House daily with boatloads of subpoenas, what have Senate Republicans done to investigate the biggest spy scandal in American history?
Forget the Senate Intelligence Committee. It’s a lost cause. As Sperry noted, Democrats seem to be running that panel.
But we all had such high hopes for Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
The new Senate Judiciary Committee chairman has been promising for months that he will hold hearings to look into the origins of the FBI’s investigations into Trump.
He told Fox News host Sean Hannity last month that his committee will investigate how Trump “could be accused of working with a foreign government when there’s no real basis in fact.”
“[Mueller] has rendered his verdict: there is no collusion. Now, it's time to look at how this got off the rails.” –@LindseyGrahamSC pic.twitter.com/USF4HMX1h8
— GOP (@GOP) March 27, 2019
On March 14, Graham also pledged that he would hold hearings to examine whether the FBI misled surveillance court judges by using the unverified Steele dossier to obtain spy warrants against a former Trump campaign adviser.
“I promise, everybody in the country, that in the Senate, we’re going to have hearings about the FISA process,” Graham said at a Heritage Foundation event.
Back in February, after former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe claimed that Justice Department officials discussed a plan to remove President Trump from office using the 25th Amendment, Graham vowed to hold a hearing to get to the bottom of it.
“We’re going to find out what happened here and the only way I know to find out is to call the people in under oath and find out, through questioning, who’s telling the truth because the underlying accusation is beyond stunning,” the Judiciary chairman said on “Face the Nation.”
Interesting interview between Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham and CBS’s Margarget Brennan. The primary topic is the latest revelations of Andrew McCabe and his crew of ‘soft coup’ plotters.
One of the interesting parts to this interview… https://t.co/rCdSDHCj29
— Elizabeth Hawkes (@LizHawkes) February 18, 2019
Just last week, Graham told Hannity he was going to call former FBI Director James Comey back to Capitol Hill to testify about the origins of the Russia investigation.
“Millions of Americans believe that the top level of the Department of Justice and the FBI, they wanted Clinton to win and Trump to lose,” Graham told host Sean Hannity. “They manipulated the law to let her off, manipulated the facts and the law to go after Trump and that’s a big deal to a lot of people,” Graham said.
“So I promise you,” the senator continued, “former Director Comey will get to testify in the light of day. I’ll ask him about the dossier. Was it the chief reason you got a warrant against Carter Page, is it verified to this day? If there was a counter-intelligence investigation opened against the Trump campaign, why didn’t you tell Trump about it so he could do something, like you told Feinstein?”
All great points. So where’s the beef? When can we expect these hearings?
We called the Republican Judiciary Committee office for comment but Communications Director Taylor Reidy was out of the office. She did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.