Tag: Elijah Cummings

GOP senators mistake photo of Elijah Cummings for John Lewis in tribute

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska mixed up the two Black lawmakers on Saturday in an attempt to honor Lewis, who died Friday night.

WASHINGTON — In attempting to honor the late Rep. John Lewis after his death, two Republican senators mistakenly used a photo of Rep. Elijah Cummings, who died in October.

“It was an honor to know & be blessed with the opportunity to serve in Congress with JohnLewis a genuine & historic American hero. May the Lord grant him eternal peace,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., wrote on Twitter, attaching a picture of himself in a conversation with Cummings.

Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement, died Friday at 80 from pancreatic cancer. Continue reading.

House panel is probing U.S. military use of Trump-owned property in Scotland

Washington Post logoThe House Oversight Committee is investigating why a financially struggling airport near a Trump-owned golf course in Scotland has seen an uptick in expenditures by the U.S. military since President Trump took office.

Chairman Elijah E. Cummings and Rep. Jamie Raskin, both Maryland Democrats, sent a letter to the Defense Department’s acting secretary, Patrick M. Shanahan, in June asking for all travel information pertaining to Pentagon personnel through the Glasgow Prestwick Airport, as well as visits to the Trump Turnberry golf resort.

In the letter, Cummings and Raskin say that the airport “reportedly has provided ‘cut-price rooms for select passengers and crew’ and ‘offered free rounds at Turnberry to visiting U.S. military and civilian air crews.’ ”

View the complete September 7 article by Colby Itkowitz and Missy Ryan on The Washington Post website here.

Trump gloats over reports of Cummings’ Baltimore home being robbed

AlterNet logoThis week, President Donald Trump has been rallying his far-right base by defaming Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings (chairman of the House Oversight Committee) and insulting the predominantly African-American East Coast City. And the president is gloating over police reports that Cummings’ home in Baltimore had been the target of a burglary.

Friday morning on Twitter, Trump posted, “Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed. Too bad!”

Instead of sounding sympathetic, Trump sounded delighted.

View the complete August 2 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

‘I didn’t do the tweets, Chuck’: GOP senator sputters as he shamefully ducks question on Trump’s racism

AlterNet logoShowing exactly the kind of spinelessness that has become expected in the modern GOP, Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida refused to condemn President Donald Trump’s newest racist attacks on Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” Sunday morning.

Host Chuck Todd pressed Scott on the president’s weekend tweets about Cummings. As the chair of the House Oversight Committee, the Maryland Democrat has been a leading critic of the president, the White House, and the administration, recently pushing for subpoenas of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s emails and criticizing the Department of Homeland Security for the abominable conditions in which it detains migrants. In what was widely interpreted as a brazenly racist attack, Trump lashed out at Cummings on Saturday and Sunday:

Todd correctly linked this to Trump’s other recent racist attacks (while pointedly avoiding the term “racist”) and pushed for Scott to respond.

View the complete article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Baltimore Sun to Trump: Better to have a few rats than to be one

Axios logoThe Baltimore Sun denounced President Trump Saturday for his Twitter attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and the majority-black Baltimore-area district he represents — which Trump called a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

The big picture: In an article titled “Better to have a few rats than to be one,” the editorial board of the Maryland paper, one of the oldest newspapers in the U.S., wrote that it’s heartening to see public figures such as “native daughter” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Baltimore Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young defend the city.

  • The board said it wished to remind Trump that “the White House has far more power to effect change in this city, for good or ill, than any single member of Congress” —including Cummings. It left its most scathing rebuke toward the end of the article.

“[W]e would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are ‘good people’ among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post.”

View the complete July 28 article by Rebecca Falconer on the Axios website here.

Republican Brushes Off White House Approval Of ‘Serious’ Security Risks

On Monday morning, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), chair of the House Oversight Committee, revealed allegations from a White House whistleblower who said at least 25 individuals received security clearance despite disqualifying issues involving foreign influence, conflicts of interest, financial problems, drug use, and criminal conduct.

The whistleblower, Tricia Newbold, is an 18-year veteran of both Republican and Democratic administrations who reached out to Congress in order to “address the national security risks she has been witnessing over the past two years.”

Jordan, the committee’s ranking Republican, isn’t disputing Newbold’s allegations. In a nine-page memo released by the Republican committee staff Monday afternoon, he whines about behind-the-scenes process issues, but says he takes the “allegations at face value,” despite not being able to independently verify them.

View the complete April 1 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

White House rejects Dem request to interview ex-Trump aide

The White House on Friday rejected a Democratic congressional request to interview a former White House lawyer about hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money payments made by President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone told House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) in a letter obtained by The Hill that the White House has been “cooperative and responsive” to the panel’s requests for documents.

But Cipollone said that because the Oversight panel wants to interview Trump’s former deputy assistant and deputy counsel Stefan Passantino about things he discussed or advised during his White House tenure, the request needs to be sent to Cipollone’s office — not directly to Passantino.

View the complete March 8 article by Scott Wong and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.