Rep. Eric Swalwell on phase 4 of the coronavirus relief package
As COVID-19 infections across the country rise, pressure builds on Capitol Hill for Congress to do more in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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President Trump is determined to avoid unbiased oversight and accountability. That’s why he fired the chairman of the panel that Congress created to ensure accountability in the spending of $2.2 trillion for COVID-19 relief.
Congress moved with unprecedented speed and near unanimity to pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and. Economic Security (CARES) Act to help keep Americans afloat during the pandemic. Spending trillions of taxpayer dollars weighed heavily on us, so we created the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee to promote transparency and ensure the American people know where their tax dollars are going.
Because the United States never before has passed such a large spending bill, it was critically important that this committee be comprised of inspectors general. These officials are administration appointees whose jobs are to prevent and detect waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in federal departments and agencies. And to ensure the committee’s independence, Congress gave it the power to select its own chair from within its ranks.
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On March 30 the committee selected Acting Defense Department Inspector General Glenn Fine as its chair. Eight days later, President Trump demoted Fine back to deputy inspector general, essentially firing him as chair of the pandemic oversight committee.
For those of us who have followed Fine’s distinguished career in government, it isn’t hard to understand why President Trump did this. Fine has fought doggedly for nearly two decades under three presidents of both parties to protect the rule of law from corruption.
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From 2000 to 2011, Fine served as inspector general for the Justice Department, where he was hailed as independent and assertive in exposing wrongdoing such as the George W. Bush administration’s improper political firing of four U.S. attorneys.
Trump demoted Fine less than a week after firing Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who had alerted Congress to the whistleblower report on President Trump’s infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
And on the same day he demoted Fine, President Trump publicly attacked Health and Human Services Inspector General Christi Grimm for issuing a report on hospitals’ lack of critical supplies needed to treat patients with COVID-19.
It is clear that President Trump fears – and is willing to remove – anyone with enough integrity to promote the rule of law, accountability and oversight, rather than simply showing blind loyalty to him personally.
Firing Fine from chairing the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee was the kind of sad but predictable scenario that prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to establish a bipartisan House Select Committee to concurrently oversee the Trump administration’s $2.2 trillion coronavirus response spending.
While I support that committee’s mission, our experiences over the past three years make me skeptical the Trump administration will be forthright when it comes to congressional oversight.
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As a member of both the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, I watched as the Trump administration issued blanket refusals to comply with lawful congressional subpoenas in the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections and President Trump’s phone call with President Zelensky. It isn’t far-fetched to infer the Trump administration will do the same when it comes to congressional oversight of coronavirus relief spending.
President Trump doesn’t care about following the law; he believes he is the law, and he believes he is allowed to do whatever is best for himself. He has rejected the constitutional system of checks and balances and obstructed investigations at every turn.
Now the Trump administration is asking Congress for another $250 billion of taxpayer money to spend on top of the $2.2 trillion package passed two weeks ago. Americans have not even received their stimulus checks yet, let alone seen receipts for how their money is being spent.
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President Trump and his administration once again are flouting oversight and the rule of law. Congress must think long and hard before sending the president more taxpayer dollars to spend without him acquiescing to transparency and oversight.
Americans deserve to know – and must know – where their tax dollars are going, even during this pandemic crisis.
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