BLOWBACK
Earlier this week, Acting Office of Management and Budget Director and loyalist Trump stooge Russ Vought decided to get cute. Amid reports that he was planning to voluntarily cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry, he posted a tweet that was too clever by half. Right about now he’s probably wishing he could have it back.
Russ Vought tweeted this on Monday: “I saw some Fake News over the weekend to correct. As the WH letter made clear two weeks ago, OMB officials – myself and Mike Duffey – will not be complying with deposition requests this week.” He then added the #shamprocess hashtag. In other words, he was thumbing his nose at the Constitution, which clearly spells out that the House has an absolute right to carry out the impeachment process.
But then came today’s federal court ruling which established that – no surprise – the House impeachment inquiry is 100% legal and valid. Right about that time, the House hit Russ Vought, Mike Duffey, and Ulrich Brechbuhl with subpoenas compelling them to testify. Considering today’s court ruling, these three stooges will be setting themselves up to be arrested for contempt of court (which is far more powerful than contempt of Congress) if they don’t honor these subpoenas.
Talk about blowback. Russ Vought posted his “sham process” tweet on his official government Twitter account. In hindsight it reads like a pre-confession to felony obstruction of justice. Yeah, he’d probably like to have that tweet back.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report