Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who's made a long career out of outraged sanctimony at Democrats doing the very thing he championed himself under the last president, now says that he's so tough on Republican cabinet nominees so that he knows they're clean.
Nevertheless, no Republican asked by The Huffington Post over the last couple of weeks expressed the least bit of doubt about the sincerity of Trump’s nominees or whether their disagreements with their boss might be purely strategic. […]
“No. These are big-time people. They know they’ve got to be truthful,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). “Listen, I work them over pretty hard when they come into my office. They know they’ve got to tell the truth to me.”
So when confronted with the myriad and widely reported ethics problems of Rep. Tom Price and Steve Mnuchin's out and out lies to his own committee, Hatch blames it on the Democrats.
He said he saw no attempts to deceive ― except maybe by Democrats, who he said were just out to derail the Trump administration.
“These two candidates are about as honest and decent as you can be,” Hatch said, with particular contempt for the worries that Price’s activities, involving a company that benefited from his legislation, amount to insider trading.
“Oh, come on. They found $300,” Hatch said, although he misstated the amount of the investment. “He invested $300 in this company, and it’s probably not going to be profitable. I mean, that’s bush-league crap. It really is.”
Insider trading by a member of Congress—reported by that liberal rag The Wall Street Journal!—doesn't mean anything to Hatch. No more than the vaunted institution of the Senate he's constantly preaching about, until the rules of that institution get in his way. Then he's happy to trash them.