The new Senate Intelligence Committee chairman has no interest in fighting Trump’s election-year battles.
Donald Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill are pushing aggressive new investigations targeting the president’s political opponents. Marco Rubio isn’t joining the fray.
As Rubio assumes the acting chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Florida Republican is distancing himself from a GOP-led probe targeting Hunter Biden. He has declined to embrace Trump’s “Obamagate” claims. And he is warning the Republicans spearheading the Biden investigation not to promote Russian disinformation in the process.
“I’m not going to accuse any member who believes that they are exercising oversight to be colluding with a foreign power,” Rubio said in an interview last week. “I will say to you that I think it’s pretty clear that the Russians are constantly pursuing narratives that they believe will drive conflict in our politics and divide us against each other.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee has historically been a bipartisan one, but Rubio is taking over at a time when partisan tensions in the Senate are perhaps higher than they have ever been, which may bring drawbacks to the influential perch.
Trump is actively encouraging Republicans to join his election-year revenge play against those who led investigations that ensnared him, his associates and his presidential campaign. Rubio, on the other hand, appears more concerned about Russian interference in the next presidential election — a sensitive subject for Trump, who bristles at any mention of Moscow swaying American elections.
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“On that front, it’s important to remind everyone that [Vladimir] Putin is not a Republican or a Democrat,” Rubio said. “What he seeks more than anything else is to put us at each other’s throat. And nowadays that’s not a very hard thing to do.”
Rubio’s Republican counterpart on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), has been hinting at “criminal referrals” for members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. Rubio is steering clear of those and other efforts that Democrats — and privately, some Republicans — say could aid Russian intelligence.
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Marco Rubio, the new Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, has no interest in fighting Trump's election-year battles https://t.co/nKmsGVG8xk
— POLITICO (@politico) May 27, 2020
Could you explain again exactly what it is? We'll wait. https://t.co/gvZla5JsUf
— John Heilemann (@jheil) May 27, 2020
I thought that was a reporter’s job? https://t.co/KbvjX0nzHO
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 27, 2020
Sorry, I'm still busy reporting out Trump's accusation that your father was involved in the killing of JFK. https://t.co/bs7L5W4QCj
— John Heilemann (@jheil) May 27, 2020
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 27, 2020
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