‘With one of the broadest jurisdictions of any congressional committee, COR has a critical role to play in our caucus’s agenda…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) As part of her desperate bid to retain the chairmanship of the House Oversight Committee, acting chair Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, boasted that she supported impeaching President Donald Trump for an alleged quid pro quo scandal even a month before the controversial conversation between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had occurred.
“I have supported an impeachment inquiry since June when President Trump admitted on national TV that he would accept foreign assistance in our elections,” Maloney wrote last week in a “dear colleague” letter.
“At the time, I thought he was posing a hypothetical situation,” she said. “Little did we know that it was an on-air confession.”
Maloney, the 73-year-old widow of a millionaire Manhattan investor who died in a 2009 climbing accident, assumed the acting chairmanship last month after the passing of Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.
While she is the most senior Democrat on the committee, at least three other committee Democrats are jockeying for the position.
Presiding over outsize personalities like Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Debbie Wasserman Schultz—not to mention on the Oversight Committee’s prominent GOP minority members—the role will entail something of a delicate balancing act between competing demands.
Maloney’s biggest competition comes from Reps. Jackie Speier of California, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts and Gerald Connolly of Virginia, the New York Post reported.
Maloney, who was passed over for the selection last January in favor of Cummings, is taking nothing for granted this time.
In touting her credentials, Maloney went beyond emphasizing her experience serving on the committee for 26 years and chairing several subcommittees. She also played up her many left-wing bona fides, including “first woman to hold the gavel” as the acting chair of the committee.
Most importantly, she went on the attack against President Donald Trump, whose ongoing impeachment probe would figure to be a major responsibility for however long the House sought to pursue it.
“With one of the broadest jurisdictions of any congressional committee, [Oversight] has a critical role to play in our caucus’s agenda,” Maloney said.
Along with House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff of California and Foreign Affairs Chair Elliot Engel of New York, Maloney’s committee would lead the investigation process. Several other committees, including the powerful Finance and Judiciary panels, have taken more periphery roles also, the Post reported.
Maloney pledged to continue the oversight work not only into Trump’s Ukraine affairs, but also into countless other probes initiated by Cummings as part of a longstanding fishing expedition to undo the 2016 election results.
“The situation being investigated as part of the impeachment proceedings is of the utmost importance,” she said, “but we will not lose sight of the other ongoing investigations the Committee is conducting into the policies of the Trump Administration, including the family separation policy, government response to hurricanes, and ethical violations by senior officials.”