Senator Mitch McConnell plays hardball.
He did it as Minority Leader when he gummed up judicial nominations by abusing the filibuster and then again as Majority Leader when he refused to even consider Merrick Garland and dozens of other highly-qualified jurists under Obama. And then again when he disgraced his office to seat dozens of highly-unqualified jurists under Trump.
The man isn’t just shameless and corrupt...he relishes being shameless and corrupt. He won’t negotiate because he doesn’t want Biden to pass anything. Shutting everything down is the point.
But he does have a weakness and he’s already shown what it is.
Last May, Trump demoted the Department of Transportation’s acting Inspector General, Mitch Behm, a 17-year veteran, and replaced him with Howard “Skip” Elliott, a political appointee that McConnell had previously installed at DOT.
At the time of his demotion, Behm had been actively investigating allegations that the Secretary of the Department of Transportation had inappropriately steered millions of dollars of federal funds into Kentucky in support of McConnell’s re-election campaign as well as other highly unethical actions, financial ties, and self-dealing.
Trump’s Secretary of Transportation is Elaine Chao who is, of course, married to Mitch McConnell. The only reason to take the political risk of canning the Inspector General and replacing him with a political flunky would be to hide something important.
In the target-rich environment that is the Trump administration, sometimes you get a two-fer. It’s time to play hardball and go after McConnell’s wife.
Mopshell covered McConnell/Chao in January 2019.