Donald Trump forced to withdraw FEMA nominee amid bar room brawl

| 3:01 pm EDT September 19, 2019
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Considering that Mitch McConnell’s complicit Republican Senate has rubber stamped Trump nominees who have been caught up in sexual assault accusations and numerous other ugly scandals, just how bad does a Trump nominee have to be to actually fail? This evening we were reminded of just how low the bar is – and it apparently involves an actual bar.

Back when Hurricane Dorian was threatening to hit any of a number of states (none of them named Alabama), Palmer Report pointed out the United States hadn’t had a permanent FEMA Director in several months. The previous guy, Brock Long, resigned amid a corruption scandal involving a a car back in early 2018, and Trump’s replacement nominee Jeffrey Byard was just kind of sitting in limbo. Not anymore.

On Wednesday night, Rachel Maddow broke the news that the Jeffrey Byard has been withdrawn. Why? Well, there are a couple things in play. For one thing, Byard worked closely with some FEMA officials who were just indicted last week for having allegedly embezzled a bunch of money. This doesn’t prove that the officials are guilty, or that Byard participated in whatever they were allegedly doing. But it’s ugly. It’s also only half the story.

Maddow also passed along that Byard was allegedly involved in a bar room brawl, which appears to have put a damper on his confirmability. The Trump regime will claim it pulled the nomination of its own accord, and/or that Byard withdrew for family reasons. But the more likely explanation is that the Republican Senate told Trump it didn’t want the embarrassment of having to confirm this guy. This comes after the GOP Senate also rejected Trump’s recent DNI nominee. Is something at play here?