House Speaker and consummate gutless wonder Paul Ryan flirted with disaster Wednesday when he said he agreed with fellow Rep. Trey Gowdy that the FBI acted "exactly" as it was supposed to in 2016 regarding the Trump campaign's Russia ties.
Well, no one could have seen this coming, but after being told to stick it where the sun don't shine by Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs and Freedom Caucus member Rep. Matt Gaetz, Ryan repented on Thursday. The Washington Post writes:
“Let’s just make that really clear: There’s no evidence of collusion. This is about Russia and what they did and making sure they don’t do it again,” Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters, in comments excoriating federal law enforcement agencies for not being more forthcoming with documents that lawmakers had requested until Ryan personally intervened.
“It shouldn’t take a speaker of the House to have to get involved every one of these times to get the Department of Justice or any other department to comply with congressional oversight requests,” Ryan complained. “The sooner the Department of Justice complies with all of our document requests, which are legitimate document requests, the better this is going to be for everybody."
Well, the Justice Department did comply with their requests at the last unprecedented meeting with lawmakers, Ryan et al apparently just chose not to read the documents provided. The agencies have already agreed to brief lawmakers again next week.
A senior Justice Department official said the briefing will allow lawmakers "to review certain supporting documents that were made available during the prior briefing."
Thursday, Jun 7, 2018 · 8:09:39 PM +00:00 · Kerry Eleveld
UPDATE: Texas's finest, Rep. Louie Gohmert, jumps on the coup bandwagon:
“These are games that are being played by the some of the Mueller cartel at DOJ,” Gohmert said. “As long as we have Republicans in the leadership positions who think it’s okay to have Orwellian spies spy on presidential campaigns of one party, then we have bigger problems than just the briefing.”
So Ryan is making things up to cover his own butt—now that's more like it!
Dobbs and Florida Rep. Gaetz had a heyday with Ryan Wednesday night. Mediaite writes:
Dobbs asked Gaetz if he could think of a time when Ryan has defended the president against allegations of collusion with Russia. [...]
“Why in the world would your conference not say that’s enough?” Dobbs asked. “Mr. Lame Duck Speaker: Get the hell out of the office, you’re going to send us to perdition and destruction in the midterm elections.”
Dobbs continued:
“This man doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t have a strategy. He doesn’t raise money that any other speaker couldn’t raise. He certainly is not a strategic thinker. He is anti-Trump, he has been so throughout. He is a disaster, and the disaster is going to consume your party, do you not agree, if he is locked in that speakership?”
Gaetz replied that for the first time, he’s hearing more conservative members of the GOP Congress ponder booting Ryan from the speakership.
Ryan has now defended Trump against collusion—as if that hadn't been his default position for the past year-plus. Penance complete. Will it be enough to save him from a hardliner coup? Maybe.
None of this changes the fact that multiple GOP lawmakers have now declared Trump’s “spy” lie a load of hooey, including Ryan.