Senator Dick Burr is retiring, so his vote was perhaps easier than Thom Tillis's, who seems determined to become a moderate bridge-builder (not that there's anything wrong with that). Joining ten other Republicans (some of them even more surprising in their choice to support gay marriage -- see list below), Burr and Tillis helped reach the total of 62 senators favoring cloture on the Respect for Marriage Act. Sixty votes are required to forestall a filibuster. The full Senate is expected to vote again on passage, immediately after Thanksgiving, at which time it goes back to the House which has to vote again because the Senate added a religious liberty amendment not in the original House version.
The Respect for Marriage Act would require that people be considered married in any state as long as the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed. That may sound like a loophole, and it does allow some backward states to cause trouble. If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its prior same-sex marriage rulings, state governments could make the unions illegal within their borders, requiring same-sex or interracial couples to travel to a state where it is legal in order to wed. Those home states would, however, need to recognize the marriages under this bill, as would the federal government. So maybe it's a loophole with no real effect.
The bill would also repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and allowed states to decline to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. That law has remained on the books despite being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.
The religious liberty amendment that the Senate added (and which the House will have to vote on) clarifies that the bill does not authorize the federal government to recognize polygamous marriages and confirms that nonprofit religious organizations would not be required to provide “any services, facilities, or goods for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage.” There are plenty of other venues besides Our Church of the Divine Retribution ("but it has a center aisle!"), so there's no need to force yourself onto religious groups that have a bad case of the yips over gay marriage.
Republican Senators Who Voted for Marriage Equality
Retirees: Sen. Roy Blunt (Missouri), Sen. Richard Burr (North Carolina), Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio)
Plus Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia), Susan Collins (Maine), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Thom Tillis (NC), and Todd Young (Indiana).
BREAKING: The Senate overwhelmingly gave the final sign-off this evening on legislation designed to aid veterans fighting diseases they believe are linked to toxic exposure to burn pits and other causes, particularly those who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
On a 86-11 roll call, the vote served as a political surrender by Senate Republicans, a week after they blocked consideration of the popular legislation seemingly out of political pique because Democrats clinched a party-line deal on an unrelated massive domestic policy bill that could be considered later this week. Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart can be credited with bringing plenty of heat and pressure on the Republicans.
One of the 11 no votes tonight -- Sen. Thom Tillis of NC. Sen. Richard Burr, who had previously voted no, switched to yes. Tillis voted no despite this part of the bill:
For North Carolina the bill has a special meaning. From August 1953 to December 1987, military members on Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River were exposed to trichlorethylene, perchloroethylene, benzene, and vinyl chloride in the base’s drinking water. The toxins led to birth defects, high-risks of cancer, and other health conditions.
A law specific to North Carolina prevented people exposed to toxins from suing more than 10 years after the date of their first exposure. Tillis helped do away with that law as state House speaker in the N.C. legislature, but it wasn’t retroactive. Tillis actually helped draft parts of the PACT Act -- what he just voted against again -- to aid veterans who were previously excluded from assistance programs. He helped write the PACT Act. He still voted no.
What does lame duck Richard Burr have to lose, signing on to the proposed framework for new gun control legislation in the Senate? Sen. Thom Tillis has also been one of the 10 Republicans working with 10 Democrats to craft a bill in response to the Uvalde massacre. The agreed framework -- there is no bill text yet -- would focus on more extensive background checks on people under the age of 21. It's not a ban on the under-21s buying assault weapons.
Still a risky move for Tillis.
Perhaps the most consequential provision in the proposed bill would be this one:
Require that convicted domestic violence abusers and those subject to domestic violence restraining orders are included in background checks, including “those who have or have had a continuing relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.”
You should already know that Democratic Congressman G.K. Butterfield, who's served in the US House representing the (old) CD1 since the election of 2004, saw his residence moved into the new 2nd, which he recognized would be next to impossible for a Democrat to win. So he's retiring. “North Carolina is the battleground,” Butterfield told The N&O Friday. “I’ve looked at all of this and weighed all of the circumstances and I’ve just decided that I don’t want to run on that map that is gerrymandered. That is unfair ... This map is the most partisan and racially gerrymandered I have ever seen. It is extreme. Every political party pushes the envelope a little with redistricting but this is extreme to have 11 Republican seats out of 14. On a good day 10 out of 14 seats is unlawful, unconstitutional and undemocratic,” Butterfield said.
Meanwhile, former state Sen. Erica Smith, who lost the US Senate primary to Cal Cunningham in 2020 and was an announced candidate again for the Richard Burr Senate seat in 2022, has left the Senate race to run in the new 2nd CD. She wasn't getting any traction in the Senate race. Maybe she can flip what has become a much more Republican district. DavesRedistricting.org scores it 65% Republican, 33% Democratic, and 68.8% white.
Democratic candidate Richard Watkins, a political novice but an accomplished scientist, has also left the US Senate race, where he was completely overshadowed by Cheri Beasley and Jeff Jackson, and says he will now run for Congress in the new 6th CD, where the dean of liberal Democrats David Price has announced his retirement. The new 6th is one of the "safe" Democratic districts, where there's already a pile-on of new candidates. State Sen. Wiley Nickel announced first, followed by Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, a Muslim woman who made a big splash, followed by state Sen. Valerie Foushee, who instantly became a front-runner.
Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, a Republican who has been getting nowhere in the Republican primary for Richard Burr's Senate seat (despite or because of the endorsement by Madison Cawthorn), is rumored to be launching a 7th District race, where state Rep. Jon Hardister, also a Republican, is also considering a run. That's the district where football star and Yale graduate Bo Hines ("the educated Madison Cawthorn"), who once upon a time in the recent past said he was going to challenge Virginia Foxx, has finally landed his nascent congressional campaign. He's a Trumper. The new 7th CD is 78% Republican.
Late Friday night, Congress passed a massive infrastructure and jobs plan that's been in the works almost as long as Joe Biden has been president. Supported by both Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr (and all five North Carolina congressional Democrats, but none of our state's Republicans in the House), the bill will bring $9 billion in federal investment to North Carolina over the next five years.
Here's what North Carolina will get, according to estimates from the White House:
Roads and Bridges
$7.2 billion for highway programs + $457 million for bridge replacements and repairs (North Carolina has 1,460 bridges and more than 3,110 miles of highway in poor condition, per a 2020 Federal Highway Administration report)
Public Transportation and Electric Vehicle Charging
$911 million to improve public transportation options
$109 million to expand the state's electric vehicle charging network plus North Carolina can apply for some $2.5 billion in grants available in the bill for EV charging infrastructure
Broadband Internet
$100 million to provide broadband to more than 400,000 North Carolinians who lack access to broadband coverage. At least 1.1 million households in N.C. lack high speed internet access and most counties in the state have less than 65 percent broadband availability, according to the N&O.
Who Voted Against This Direct Help to North Carolina?
Both Madison Cawthorn and Virginia Foxx, those sterling representatives of "the people."
Senator Richard Burr made sure he had to be somewhere else yesterday, when the vote on a January 6th Commission came up in the US Senate. He had an unavoidable conflict, his office said. Burr was one of 11 US senators -- all Republican -- who skipped out, because they knew what was the right thing to do and had no stomach for actually voting against the right thing. So they ducked out. (All 11 are listed below.)
Once upon an odd time, Burr had the courage to vote for Trump's conviction in his second impeachment trial. What happened afterward? He was shunned. Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, who is running for Burr’s seat, sent out a fundraising appeal immediately after the vote. “...I am running to replace Richard Burr because North Carolina needs a true conservative champion as their next senator,” Walker tweeted. U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop (don't get me started) said in a tweet that he supported an immediate censure vote. Yes, I know the NCGOP did censure Burr's ass, so I guess he's now (and forever) one cowed suit (with open-necked collar).
When they voted to censure him, Burr issued a statement calling it "a sad day" for NC Republicans: “My party’s leadership has chosen loyalty to one man [do you think he means Trump?] over the core principles of the Republican Party and the founders of our great nation."
He found his balls once, long enough to vote for impeachment. But martyrdom ain't for everbiddy. Maybe it's the rare senator who can think, while simultaneously going out the door, that he needs to pull down the Temple behind him. "What the hell! They've done their worst to me. I might as well shoot the moon." He could have voted to form an investigative commission to find out how a violent invasion of the Capitol happened, but he ducked out the backdoor.
Jesus H. Christ.
Meanwhile that other North Carolina waffles-and-chicken senator, Thom Tillis, showed up and voted to ditch any investigation. "Tillis called the commission a partisan endeavor — despite its even makeup and rules requiring bipartisan buy-in for subpoenas" (Brian Murphy). Tillis has the courage of his talkingpoint.
Kimrey Rhinehardt, who actually used to work for Richard Burr on Capitol Hill, decided she needed a divorce from the Republican Party while watching the Capitol insurrection. “I felt like I had no political home,” Rhinehardt said. “I think I’m on a mission to create one. Not just for me but people who feel the same that I do.”
Rhinehardt re-registered as "Unaffiliated," and now she's launching a petition drive to get on the 2022 ballot as an independent candidate for US Senate (her old boss's seat, though she worked for Burr when he was in Congress and before he made it to the Senate). It will be a heavy lift. She needs 84,000 verifiable signatures on the petition, an unconscionable rule that shows you how thoroughly the two major parties have rigged the system to shut out people like Kimrey Rhinehardt. (Make that 84,000 ink signatures.)
The News and Observer posted her introductory video. As she talks, she's handling Republican memorabilia from a lifetime of conservative political activism, including photos of her posing with every prominent Republican politician from Jesse Helms to Bob Dole to Richard Burr. She was a party animal. She was also a political science major at AppState.
“I want North Carolina’s voices to be heard. I don’t want it to be a party-driven message,” she told the Chatham News Record. “Because most people that I know don’t sit down and think about the issues facing their family in a political way. They don’t sit down and say, ‘What would the Republican Party suggest that I do?’ or ‘What would the Democratic Party suggest that I do?’ ”
Richard L. Watkins, who earned his Ph.D. at Chapel Hill in microbiology and immunology with a specialty in virology, has announced his intention to run for the US Senate seat currently held by Richard Burr. No one saw this coming. A freaking genuine scientist running for US Senate from North Carolina!
He touts his role as founder and CEO of The Science Policy Action Network. I've been on that website and clicked a lot of buttons, but I still don't know what they do. The language is all abstraction --"Exploration, Understanding, Knowledge" -- without specifics, though the bios of the staff and board of directors are quite fulsome about their scientific credentials.
Perhaps Watkins' primary salaried job is coordinating UNC’s Chancellor’s Science Scholars Program, which is cited in the News & Observer interview. He also serves on UNC’s Campus and Community Advisory Committee.
I'm most curious about his previous run for office. In 2018, he challenged Democratic Congressman David Price in the primary for the 4th CD. Watkins took 6.48% of the vote. Why? Why would he challenge the most venerable Democrat among North Carolina office-holders? Was he unhappy with Price's service? I can't find any of his campaign literature from 2018, so his candidacy at that time and against that incumbent just seems ... quixotic.
He's also not at all active on social media. He hasn't posted to his Twitter account since June 12, 2019, nor to his Facebook page since December 18, 2020.
All of which suggests that this may be a "wild hair campaign," when an otherwise attractive and qualified young person leapt before they looked.
Already announced for the 2022 Democratic senatorial primary -- former state Sen. Erica Smith and current state Sen. Jeff Jackson -- both seasoned campaigners who are well prepared for the race and well underway.
This is how hollowed out the North Carolina Republican Party has become because of Trump: the Central Committee of Party pooh-bahs have called an emergency teleconference this evening for the sole purpose of censuring their senior senator ... because you just can't let an outbreak of personal integrity and conscience fester.
Will anyone on the Central Committee support Burr's independence from Trumpism? Will we know?
Senator Richard Burr's conscience in his vote of "guilty" yesterday earned him no respect from the NCGOP. Republican Party Chair Michael Whatley quickly issued a statement saying Burr's guilty vote was "shocking and disappointing." He stopped at that. Rep. Dan Bishop of the 9th District went further. He immediately joined in a call for a Party censure of Burr. Meanwhile, former Rep. Mark Walker, who's running for Burr's seat, used the Burr vote to fundraise for himself: “Wrong vote, Sen. Burr. I am running to replace Richard Burr because North Carolina needs a true conservative champion as their next senator.”
On the other side of the Republican Party, the side that still wants to put country before the perverse itches of one man, Judge Bob Orr announced that he'll be submitting his change of party registration this coming week, and he did it with all caps: "I CAN'T WAIT TO LEAVE THE GOP."
Even though Chair Whatley's statement -- all things considered -- was very short and perfunctory, more than it was scalding, he may not be able to hold his party back from an open split when Trumpists outnumber the Judge Orrs. If they intend to enforce loyalty to one man who mainly golfs, it can't be good for the future of traditional Republicanism in North Carolina. Can it?
North Carolina senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis voted their fear yesterday. They're afraid of Trump, first, and of Trump's mob, 2nd (though the mob may be moving up in the standings after January 6th).
We heard from eye witnesses yesterday that several Republican senators were afraid to look at the 13-minute video of the insurrection. They turned their heads away, they averted their eyes, they pretended to be absorbed by paperwork in their desks. Did Richard Burr turn his head away? Did he avert his eyes? That cobbled-together quick video of the insurrection offered the ocular proof of what Trump's mob can do in service to the big lie. The senators might wink at the video evidence, but they can't escape basic geography. They have their butts planted in the actual scene of the crime (planted because every senator is literally required to be there sitting at his/her desk for the duration of the trial).
The mob, who evidently live to die for their chosen strong man, are the easily manipulated bully boys who carry resentment in their hearts. They could so easily be turned against you, couldn't they, senators? These are your voters (though some don't vote at all). You have encouraged them, nurtured them, fed their grudges, enabled their hatreds. That mob runs on belief impervious to logic, and up until the insurrection, you Republican senators could benefit from that bull-headedness without necessarily getting cut by flying glass. Now you know what they're capable of in their thousands. You have every good reason on God's green earth to avert your eyes from the Frankenstein you juiced into life.
Trump's 44 defenders in the US Senate, including our North Carolina senators, are desperately searching for any rationale to save Trump that is not based on defending or excusing what he did -- not just what he said at that rally on January 6th but what he said for months and months before as he laid the groundwork that he could only lose the presidency by fraud.
Yesterday, Trump's defense lawyer Bruce Schoen (the second one, not the first blowhard. Schoen was the angry Trump lawyer), practically promised civil war if Trump is convicted in the Senate. Given such a threat, we can understand -- rationalize -- the puddle of former (?) integrity that Thom Tillis has melted down to. Tillis whistles as he walks through the graveyard, but come on, Dude -- you just got another six years which ought to give you some sort of spine. Make some display of statesmanship that doesn't depend on loyalty to Trump.
But what's the deal with Richard Burr? Back near the end of January, Burr grabbed at the "he's out of office and therefore beyond the reach of the Senate" argument: “This is a civilian now. A charge like this would go to the Justice Department and be referred for prosecution. Unfortunately, that’s not what they’re doing.” That late-January dodge represented a big change in Burr from his first pronouncement, a flash of disloyalty to Trump on Insurrection Day: “The President bears responsibility for today’s events by promoting the unfounded conspiracy theories that have led to this point.” It's a strangely stiff and formal statement, but at least it was accurate.
Burr's retiring in 2022. He doesn't have to face the Trumpist voters again, unless maybe he's thinking he'll need them for something else, for an appointment to something high, or for continued top billing among Party activists. If he isn't thinking of future office (or the life as a political hack), mightn't he be free to display a conscience, an adherence to the rule of law rather than to partisanship?
The Los Angeles Times broke the news last night (their site is protected by a paywall, so I'm relying on a secondary source) that Sen. Richard Burr surrendered his cell phone yesterday when the FBI served a search warrant at his Washington home. The G-men are investigating "whether Burr used information he obtained as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to sell a significant share of his stocks before the coronavirus outbreak upended the markets."
Apparently, there was a previous (first) search warrant that was used to collect information from Burr’s iCloud account. Some of the data collected from Apple was then used as evidence to obtain the warrant for Burr’s phone.
"Burr was one of just three senators who voted against the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which extended insider trading regulations to U.S. senators and representatives. At the time, he called the legislation 'ludicrous.' ”
“This is a very, very big deal,” Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, tweeted Wednesday night. “This is not something the FBI or DOJ does lightly. It requires layers of review, the blessing of a judge, and consideration of severe reputational harm to a sitting US Senator.”
"Reputational harm"? You don't say.
"A search warrant indicates that investigators were able to show to the satisfaction of a federal judge or magistrate probable cause to suspect a crime occurred and an expectation of the search yielding evidence."
So if a serious investigation of Richard Burr's activities are underway, one wonders what's going on with the similar stock-dumping accusations against Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and for that matter the accusations against senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) that date from the same time.
Some people are already forecasting a resignation for Burr and two, not one, US Senate seats on the ballot in North Carolina in November. I'm maybe more interested in the conspiratorial suggestion that Trump's grudge against Burr, for once upon a time subpoenaing Donald Trump Jr. in the Russia investigation, has motivated his handmaiden at the Department of Justice, William Barr, to send the FBI against Burr.
Appreciate Jeffrey Billman's IndyWeek Primer for pointing out an article in ProPublica about how Senator Burr sold his DC townhouse to a high-powered lobbyist for what appears to be an above-market price.
“Burr sold the small townhouse, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, for what, by some estimates, was an above market price—$900,000—to a team led by lobbyist John Green. That is tens of thousands of dollars above some estimates of the property’s value by tax assessors, a real estate website and a local real estate agent. The sale was done off-market, without the home being listed for sale publicly.”
“The legality of this sale hinges on whether the home was purchased for fair market value. If it was purchased for more than that, it would be considered a gift. Gifts of significant value from lobbyists are generally banned by Senate ethics rules, and those that aren’t are typically required to be publicly disclosed. Neither Burr nor Green disclosed any such gifts. Gifts that are intended to influence official actions are illegal.”
“Burr, it seems, has not gotten the memo that 50 percent of North Carolinians want him to resign. He hasn’t even listened to Fox News darling Tucker Carlson, who said ‘there is no greater moral crime than betraying your country in a time of crisis’ and called for Burr to quit as well.”
A law called the Stock Act prohibits members of Congress, their staffers, and other federal officials from trading on insider information obtained from their government work. "No one has been charged under the Stock Act since its passage in 2012, and some legal experts consider it a difficult statute under which to file criminal charges" (Devlin Barrett).
According to the WashPost, Senator Richard Burr is under investigation by the Justice Department for possible violation of the Stock Act. As chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr received frequent briefings on the threat of the Coronavirus. In mid-February, Burr sold 33 stocks including shares in some industries that were later hit hardest by the pandemic’s rapid spread throughout the United States, including hotels, restaurants, shipping, drug manufacturing, and health care.
Melanie Sloan, a senior adviser to the watchdog group American Oversight, said that Burr “cannot be questioned about what he learned regarding the coming pandemic in his role as chair of the Intelligence Committee, making prosecution improbable.” She said the Senate Ethics Committee, however, has jurisdiction over the issue and if it finds Burr traded on inside information, could recommend his expulsion.
That ain't gonna happen. And it's highly unlikely that the Justice Department under William Barr will find anything to indict. However, it's not a good look for Republicans in power. Even the loud-mouthed partisan Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has demanded that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell strip Burr of his committee chairmanship. “Republicans need to do a better job cleaning our own house,” Gaetz wrote.
Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.
As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.
A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline and has lost about 30% since.
On Thursday, Burr came under fire after NPR obtained a secret recording from Feb. 27, in which the lawmaker gave a VIP group at an exclusive social club a much more dire preview of the economic impact of the coronavirus than what he had told the public.
Senator Burr's not the only public servant to use inside knowledge to benefit himself. Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia (appointed to the seat on January 6) is coincidentally married to the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. The Daily Beast article that outed her stock sell-off points out that she and Burr were in the same Senate briefing that warned about what was probably going to happen to the stock market because of the Coronavirus:
The Senate’s newest member sold off seven figures’ worth of stock holdings in the days and weeks after a private, all-senators meeting on the novel coronavirus that subsequently hammered U.S. equities.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the coronavirus.
This morning National Public Radio played a secret recording of Senator Richard Burr made three weeks ago in which the senator warned a private gathering of well-heeled constituents -- major business-owners and others -- that the Coronavirus was probably as big a threat as the 1918 flu pandemic which killed millions. He was making these comments in private at the same time that Donald Trump was still claiming the virus was going to disappear quickly.
NPR makes plain that Burr was telling harsh truths to his peeps while concealing that truth from the general public.
Here's the ad being run by Republicans For the Rule of Law, a group of conservative Republicans disturbed by D. Trump's quid pro quo behavior with Ukraine. (The group includes former Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and other prominent conservatives.) The ad is being tailored for at least 20 different Republican politicians all over the nation. Republicans for the Rule of Law legal advisor and spokesman Chris Truax said, "It is no longer about whether Republicans believe President Trump or whether they support his policies. It’s about whether they support his admitted abuse of power and his efforts to secure a foreign government’s help in an American election. President Trump sees nothing wrong with his behavior. In fact, he’s proud of it. The question now is, are Republicans?”
Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article235554352.html#storylink=cpy
For the first time a subpoena has been issued to a member of the Trump family, to Don Junior, by Senator Richard Burr's Intelligence Committee. Burr's already announced he will not be running for reelection in 2022 when his term ends. He perhaps feels a little freer to exercise those atrophied personal integrity muscles.
Because ... evidently (and according to the Mueller Report) Don Junior lied to Senator Burr's staff when he appeared for an interview last year, lied about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the Russians. According to the reporting of Ashley Parker et al., "...the Intelligence Committee has been trying to schedule a second interview with Trump Jr. for weeks, according to people familiar with the negotiations .... As negotiations over Trump Jr.’s testimony dragged on, committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) became increasingly frustrated and believed that Trump Jr. was defying the committee’s authority and not honoring his original agreement...."
Increasingly frustrated and pissed enough to issue a subpoena to the Crown Prince. Impressive.
On March 9, 2017, FBI Director James Comey briefed the "Gang of 8" on the progress of investigations into Russia's involvement in our elections. The Gang of 8 includes the heads of Senate and House intelligence committees, of which Sen. Richard Burr is one, in his official role as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Burr and the others learned from Comey that four, maybe five individuals were under active investigation, including Paul Manafort, Gen. Mike Flynn, “the Greek Guy” Papadopoulos, and Carter Page.
According to meticulous notes taken by White House Counsel Don McGahn (or by his assistant), Burr talked to McGahn via phone on March 16 and spilled those names to McGahn, who presumably passed them on to Twitterman.
The Mueller Report documents all of that transaction in footnoted detail.
What does Burr have to say about that inappropriate leaking? "I can't recall." Followed by "if specific individuals were discussed" -- opening a crack in his denial as wide as a church door -- "it was just people that everybody already knew were being investigated." Really. Here's Burr's statement in part:
"Chairman Burr does not recall this specific conversation with Mr. McGahn in March of 2017; however, any conversations between the two would have been in reference to the need for White House personnel to voluntarily comply with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation," Caitlin Carroll, a spokeswoman for Burr, told NBC News in a statement. "If specific individuals were discussed, they would have been those known to the Committee, the White House, and the media. The Chairman’s stewardship over the Committee’s bipartisan and fact-based investigation over the last two years speaks for itself."
Burr's March 2017 spilling of beans to the White House was not the first time he carried water for Trump. In February 2017, Burr told The Washington Post that he had conversations with the White House about Russia-related news reports and had contacted news organizations to dispute articles by The New York Times and CNN. “I felt I had something to share that didn’t breach my responsibilities to the committee in an ongoing investigation,” Burr told the Post.
A lack of integrity and personal responsibility in protecting Twitterman from justice is going to be the death of the Republican Party.
J.W. Williamson was the founding editor in 1972 of the Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review, which he edited until July of 2000. He has taught college classes in Appalachian history, cultural politics, and literature, and he has lectured widely on the pop-culture history of "Appalachia" in the American consciousness. His books include Interviewing Appalachia, Southern Mountaineers in Silent Films, and Hillbillyland: What the Mountains Did to the Movies and What the Movies Did to the Mountains. He has won the Thomas Wolfe Award given by the Western North Carolina Historical Society, the Laurel Leaves Award given by the Appalachian Consortium, a special Weatherford Award given by Berea College, and the Cratis Williams-James Brown Award given by the Appalachian Studies Association.
The views expressed on WataugaWatch are solely those of J.W. Williamson or individual contributors and are not necessarily shared nor endorsed by the Watauga County Democratic Party nor by any other adults of sound mind in this or any other universe.
