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It Appears Mitch McConnell Has Done All the Dirty Work He Can Do

Photo credit: Samuel Corum - Getty Images
Photo credit: Samuel Corum - Getty Images

From Esquire

There’s a little intrigue swirling around Senate Minority Leader — Yes, that’s Senate Minority Leader — Mitch McConnell. First, there was the revelation that the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General had asked the Justice Department to consider opening a criminal investigation into former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who happens to be married to McConnell.

Investigators said that, in one instance, Chao allegedly directed political appointees on her staff to reach out to the Department of Homeland Security regarding a work permit application for a student "who was a recipient of Chao family's philanthropy," the report stated. Inspector general investigators said Chao allegedly made plans to include family members during a planned work trip to China that was ultimately canceled, the report added.The inspector general report said Chao declined to respond to questions as part of the investigation, but DOT General Counsel Steven Bradbury provided a memo in September that emphasized the cultural value of supporting family.

(Those of us who remember the previous Republican Worst President Ever recalls that Bradbury had “provided” other memos under that administration. These explained why torture wasn’t torture if we all just called it something else. Apparently, there was no “cultural value” in the Geneva Convention.)

At the same time, back in Kentucky, McConnell is working behind the scenes with allies in the state legislature to rig the selection of a possible successor. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

The bill — which has the approval of 78-year-old U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — would do away with Kentucky’s current law, which allows the governor to appoint someone to fill the seat until the next regular election of the U.S. House of Representatives (every two years). Instead, Senate Bill 228 would require the governor to appoint someone to temporarily fill a vacancy left by a U.S. Senator from a list of three names given to him by the executive committee of the political party of the senator who formerly held the seat, adding Kentucky to a list of at least six states that require an appointed senator to be the same party as the person who previously held the office.

These are not difficult dots to connect. It appears that McConnell—who is, after all, 78—has determined that he has done all the dirty work of which he is capable and is working on an escape plan that will guarantee that Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, doesn’t do anything crazy, like act with the full powers of the job. If there’s one great crusade of McConnell’s public career, it’s to demonstrate that, the public interest be damned, Democratic politicians are never truly elected. Say what you will about it, it’s an ethos.

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