Liberal Group: No Investigation, No Confirmation

The liberal base of the Democratic Party is refusing to give up on the notion that somehow it was Russia, not President Donald Trump, who beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

The Center for American Progress, a liberal political action committee founded by Clinton’s former campaign chairman, John Podesta, has launched a new effort to simultaneously delegitimize the Trump administration and justify Senate Democrats’ obstruction of Judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. It’s summed up in four words:

No Investigation, No Confirmation

Here’s what CAP sent out to its supporters:

Congress had a busy Monday. On the same day that Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch made his first formal appearance on the Hill, FBI Director James Comey that the FBI is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and possible coordination between the Trump team and Russia, calling into question the entire legitimacy of Trump’s presidency.

After Justice Scalia died, Republican leaders in Congress demanded his seat remain open until the American people had their “voices heard” in November’s election. Then in an unprecedented show of obstruction, senate majority leaders held the seat open for more than a year. Majority leaders are now determined to rush through the confirmation of Judge Gorsuch and ignore serious concerns about Russia.

No president has ever made a lifetime appointment while facing such serious questions about his claims to the presidency. Hitting pause on Gorsuch’s confirmation until the FBI’s investigation unfolds is the only way to ensure the integrity of the Supreme Court.

Already, it seems, Democrats are jumping on board. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) already jumped on the new talking points during a floor speech:

It is unseemly to be moving forward so fast on confirming a Supreme Court justice so fast with a lifetime appointment while this big grey cloud of an FBI investigation hangs over the presidency.

You can bet if the shoe were on the other foot and a Democratic president was under investigation by the FBI, the Republicans would be howling at the moon about filling a Supreme Court seat in such circumstances.

But even as FBI Director Comey admitted an investigation was underway, he didn’t say that it was only targeting the Trump campaign, and he also had to admit that, so far, there’s absolutely no evidence that the president or anyone in his campaign did anything wrong. {eoa}