A New York member of Congress blows off Intelligence Committee meetings amid multiple national security crises.
THE STAKES:
Where does her loyalty ultimately lie — with the country, or the president?
U. S. Rep. Elise Stefanik has a choice to make: between a president whose reputation she seems determined to protect and the lives of American servicepeople whom that president seems to regard only as show props.
It's been more than a week since credible reports surfaced of Russia offering bounties to Afghan fighters for killing U.S. troops, and Mr. Trump has yet to express the slightest concern about our soldiers. Instead, the nation's commander-in-chief is focused on how this affects him. He's in full denial mode, insisting he takes Russia at its word that the whole thing is, as he puts it, a "hoax."
And Ms. Stefanik? She's been blowing off House Intelligence Committee meetings on the matter, getting all she cares to know from Mr. Trump.
As the Times Union's Emilie Munson reports from Washington, Ms. Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, is one of nine Republicans on the committee who have skipped all but one of its hearings in recent months, though Ms. Stefanik has found time to attend various Trump campaign events. She's been absent as the committee has dealt with other big issues, too, including the coronavirus pandemic and attempts by foreign governments to influence U.S. elections — two other areas in which serious questions have been raised about Mr. Trump's competence or inattention.
Her excuses? Take your pick. She claims that the committee's virtual meetings during the pandemic aren't secure enough. She also dismisses them as "public spectacles." And she says that committee Democrats, including the chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, "have a record of leaking classified information."
Let's be clear what Ms. Stefanik is saying: that members of Congress are breaking the law and committing acts of treason. That sort of talk may pass for entertainment on right-wing radio, but Ms. Stefanik is irresponsibly offering them without regard for their veracity. It cheapens the political debate, especially when they pertain to grave charges — backed up by evidence and analysis within the U.S. intelligence community — that the president was derelict in his duty to protect American troops. This is the bipartisanship she talks of so easily?
Ms. Stefanik's real concern, obviously, is that she has tied her political future to Mr. Trump ever since she decided to be one of his fiercest defenders in his impeachment for trying to extort political favors from Ukraine's president in exchange for military aid.
We get it: Her party is out of power in the House. Well, tough; she still has a job to do. Press releases about protecting "our brave men and women in uniform" are just talk if she's acting as a surrogate for a negligent president or gathering in partisan White House huddles rather than doing the work in Congress she was elected to do.
Ms. Stefanik should be demanding a public accounting of whether the reported Russian bounties were real, whether any U.S. troops died as a result, whether and how long the president knew about this, and what he did or didn't do about it. And if he didn't know about it, as he keeps claiming in the face of growing evidence to the contrary, why not?
Instead of getting the answers to those critical questions, Ms. Stefanik, like our distracted commander-in-chief, seems to have gone AWOL.
To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com
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Editorial: Ms. Stefanik's bad choice - Times Union
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