The Lugar Center is a fairly recent addition of the sort of traditional institute in Washington that prevailed before Donald Trump. Its mission is to advance an internationalist foreign policy, “bipartisan governance,” and bring together experts to “bridge ideological divides.” It was founded by one of the last of the moderate Republicans, Richard G. Lugar, the late U.S. senator from Indiana, who once seemed to define the mainstream of a now bygone party, in the forefront of legislation to curb nuclear proliferation, but was purged in a brutal primary, losing to a Tea Party candidate who declared rape that resulted in a pregnancy was a “gift from God.”
On May 27, the Lugar Center released its first comprehensive Congressional Oversight Hearing Index, an in-depth study of the due diligence of every committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate in holding the executive branch accountable, concluding with a grade for each committee. “If a House or Senate committee is failing to meet historical standards, because of partisan bias, the inattention of the committee chair, or any other reasons, the COHI will illuminate that shortfall,” the Center stated. While many committees received high grades, the lowest grade—an “F” for failure—was awarded to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The report observed that the committee previously had been “one of the most active in the Senate,” but that its hearing schedule had “fallen dramatically.” On the Lugar Center’s carefully considered Bell Curve, the committee was at rock bottom and its chairman had flunked.
Trump’s Senators
Just a week later, on June 4, that chairman, Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, who had come to power on the Tea Party wave that carried out Richard Lugar, rammed through authorization for 35 subpoenas to fulfill President Donald Trump’s reported demand at a meeting on May 19 of Senate Republicans to get “tough” on the “Obamagate” conspiracy, a purported “Deep State” plot of the Obama administration and the intelligence community to destroy his presidency by investigating his campaign’s links to and possible collusion with the Russian interference in the 2016 election. Continue reading.
Democrats demanded an F.B.I. briefing. They were concerned about a potential Russian-linked effort to interfere in the election by using a Senate panel to advance smears against Joe Biden, officials said.