How badly did Nancy Pelosi bungle this easy lay-up? Chuck Schumer practically gift-wrapped a rare opportunity for the Democrat-controlled House to prove that they could govern, and even then Pelosi refused to act — even, briefly, after an assassin came within sight of Brett Kavanaugh’s home.
Pelosi finally realized how bad it looked. Too bad members of The Squad still don’t:
After a Supreme Court draft opinion’s release to the public, a threat to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s life and a House-Senate snafu, a bill to extend security to the family members of Supreme Court justices is headed to President Joe Biden’s desk.
The House voted to pass the bill 396-27 Tuesday afternoon. It was spearheaded by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) and passed the Senate unanimously more than a month ago.
This bill sat around for more than a month after the radical activist group Ruth Sent Us doxxed the conservative justices and posted their addresses on line. That led Nicholas Roske right to Kavanaugh’s house last Wednesday morning, all while Pelosi stalled the bill. Even after that thwarted assassination attempt Pelosi initially refused to budge on the bill passed by the Senate unanimously, hoping to score some political concessions by holding it up while the doxxing and protests continued:
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“No one is in danger over the weekend,” Pelosi scoffed, literally less than 40 hours removed from an assassin showing up at Kavanaugh’s house. If that had happened to a member of Pelosi’s caucus, you can bet that she would have demanded an immediate and robust addition to their security from Capitol Police and/or the FBI tout suite. As it was, Pelosi’s stalling on the bill in the first place accomplished nothing and left her on the hook if the attack had actually transpired.
So which House members voted against the bill Schumer teed up for the easy lay-up? No big surprises:
Twenty seven House Democrats voted against the bill, including progressives like Reps. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and some New Jersey Democrats.
Supposedly Pelosi wanted to expand the bill to include abortion providers, for some reason, even though House Democrats could have tried that on their own. (Perhaps they should be more worried about attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers, eh?) Rather than actually produce a bill that would have expanded the approach, Pelosi and her team basically did nothing at all. John Cornyn and Steve Scalise heaped scorn on House Democrats:
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“If House Democrats actually believed in the snake oil they’re trying to sell, they would have passed their own bill a month ago, but they didn’t and they haven’t,” Cornyn said. …
“It just begs the question: Why did Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi delay it for over a month?” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) asked, predicting the Senate bill gets the “lion share” of House members.
Instead, after purposely delaying a rare unanimous Senate bill for weeks after the doxxing and nearly a week after the attempted assassination, Pelosi finally caved this afternoon. It’s an inexplicable outcome, having a picked a fight that no one wanted at the time only to cave in the end weeks later without having gained anything except egg on Pelosi’s face. And it almost came too late in Kavanaugh’s case.
Speaking of which, the Washington Post points out a curious gap in the Roske timeline. The initial understanding was that Roske called 911 immediately after realizing that Kavanaugh had armed security at the house. Now it looks like the call came more than thirty minutes after Roske left the neighborhood:
Court records say that after Roske flew in from California and got out of a taxi near the conservative justice’s home in Chevy Chase, Md., just after 1 a.m. on Wednesday, he saw two deputy U.S. marshals standing outside their vehicle and he walked away. But another factor may also have played an important role.
While walking along the narrow, leafy streets of Kavanaugh’s neighborhood, Roske contacted his sister, officials said.
“The suspect arrived by taxi and observed the U.S. marshals, and he turned around to contemplate his next move,” according to Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones. “This is when he texted his sister and told her of his intentions, and she convinced him to call 911, which he did.” …
The details of what was allegedly said or texted between Roske and his sister, and how long they communicated, could not be learned. But according to court records and Montgomery County 911 recordings, approximately 33 minutes passed from the time Roske allegedly saw the marshals — and the marshals saw him — to when he called 911. During that time, he walked around the corner from the justice’s home and positioned himself about 1½ blocks away.
That certainly raises some questions about the timeline. Who else might Roske have called? Was anyone else involved in this plot? Investigators will have already executed warrants for phone records from Roske, and that might lead to others. Or maybe not; Roske may have spent thirty minutes on the phone getting convinced to give himself up. But that seems like a pretty significant gap, and it also could mean that Roske may have been mulling options for an alternate plan in light of the security presence he’d already seen. Or perhaps he made sure to let someone else know what to expect on a subsequent attempt.
All the more reason to pass this bill when the Senate handed it off, not until after someone made an attempt at assassinating a sitting member of the Supreme Court. Pelosi’s delay is disgraceful under the circumstances, and a great example of how Democrats aren’t a responsible governing party. It’s tough to determine whether we have one in Congress at all these days, in fact.
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