Donald in a panicky rant amid probe
THAT DIDN’T last long.
President Trump’s call for unity in the wake of a shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice crumbled beneath the weight of partisan politics on Thursday.
“Democrats have absolutely NOTHING to offer our country,” read a caustic campaign blast from “Team Trump” — sent hours after the President expressed hope that the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) could bring harmony to a fractured nation.
“We’ve had a very, very divided country for many years and I have a feeling that Steve has made a great sacrifice but there could be some unity being brought to our country. Let’s hope so,” Trump told reporters at the White House. The email isn’t nearly as empathetic. “After their BILLION-DOLLAR election loss, all Democrats have done is OBSTRUCT President Trump and maniacally scream the word “RUSSIA” until they’re blue in the face,” reads the plea for contributions.
The barrage of bullets from James Hodgkinson, a Republican-hating Bernie Sanders supporter, has exposed the deepening divide between liberals and conservatives, according to some lawmakers and scholars.
Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) said Trump’s own political rhetoric is “partially to blame for demons that have been unleashed,” citing angry constituents in his home district.
Sanford, speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” said he has asked irate voters at town halls why they act so uncivilly toward each other. “They’ll say, ‘Look, if the guy at the top can say anything to anybody at any time, why can’t I?’ ” Sanford said.
Trump’s campaign team wasn’t the only one sending out controversial emails after the politically charged shooting.
Republican Patrick Neville, the minority leader of Colorado’s House of Representatives, was condemned for sending out a fund-raising missive just hours after the incident left Scalise and three others wounded.
Neville said the blame for the shooting was “squarely at the feet of ‘tolerance-preaching progressives’ and their accomplices in the media.”
The pitch included an appeal for $25 or $50 for the Colorado Liberty PAC.
Neville received criticism from both sides of the aisle.
“It’s too far. It’s too much. And we don’t want to hear how it’s ‘too soon’ ever again,” Colorado Pols, a liberal blog, wrote in response.
Rep. Steve King(R-Iowa) appeared to be in line with Neville, immediately casting blame on liberals for the ambush on the baseball diamond — before even knowing the shooter’s politics.
“I don’t know anything about the perpetrator,” King told reporters near the scene of the shooting. “But I do know that America is divided . . . . And the violence is appearing in the streets. And it’s coming from the left.”
Political tensions have heightened recently because public trust in government and other institutions is low, said Patrick Egan, a political science professor at NYU.
“When people on all sides of the political spectrum do not have confidence in institutions it means that there really isn’t a common ground in which people on all sides can agree,” he told the Daily News.
Egan said that while Wednesday’s violence was troubling, tensions haven’t reached the heights of earlier eras like the 1960s. “Yes, we can acknowledge that the public is angry and polarized,” he said, but violence has remained relatively low “despite the fact that our rhetoric has heated.” PRESIDENT TRUMP seemed to confirm that he is under investigation for obstruction of justice Thursday morning in a tweet dismissing the probe.
“They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice,” he tweeted.
But the tweet appeared to verify a report from the Washington Post on Wednesday that the federal criminal probe into the Trump campaign’s possible Russia collusion has expanded into investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice.
He added in another tweet, “You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history — led by some very bad and conflicted people!”
According to the report, the investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller has focused on Trump’s potential obstruction in the past month, ever since he abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey.
Trump suggested investigators spend their time probing his campaign rival, now a private citizen .
“Why is it that Hillary Clinton’s family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my nondealings are?” he tweeted, later referring to her as “Crooked H.”
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly called for voters to elect him over Clinton because her White House would be paralyzed by numerous investigations and Watergate-sized scandals.
“There’s virtually no doubt that FBI Director Comey and the great, great special agents of the FBI will be able to collect more than enough evidence to garner indictments against Hillary Clinton and her inner circle, despite her efforts to disparage them and to discredit them,” he said at a campaign event in Nevada days before the vote. “In that situation, we could very well have a sitting President under felony indictment.” VICE PRESIDENT Pence has lawyered up.
Pence hired outside legal counsel to deal with the ongoing investigations into possible collusion between Russia and President Trump’s campaign, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.
The former Indiana governor has retained Richmond-based attorney Richard Cullen, according to the newspaper.
Cullen served as a U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia before joining the McGuire Woods law firm.