Republicans are finally bothering to hold a confirmation hearing for unlawfully appointed Chad Wolf
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Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Chad Wolf defied a subpoena ordering him to appear before the House Homeland Security Committee last week. A photograph by Getty from that hearing showed a place card bearing his name at an empty seat. But this is the Trump administration, meaning he might be getting a promotion instead of being held accountable as he should be.
On Monday, Senate Republicans announced they’re moving ahead with his nomination to officially lead DHS, and will hold a full committee hearing on Wednesday where he’ll be introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz. Oh boy. Good ol’ Ted is a stickler for “law and order,” except for when he’s not. In the case of the guy he’s introducing next week, he’s been unlawfully serving as the department’s acting secretary for 10 months now.
As we noted earlier this month, Unlawful Chad has ignored the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) report finding that both he and his acting deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, have been unlawfully serving at DHS in order to use the power of his office to politically benefit impeached president Donald Trump, including participating in a likely unlawful naturalization stunt as part of the Republican National Convention last month. But that’s not all. Far from it.
It feels like a bajillion years ago, but it wasn’t even two full weeks ago that a whistleblower report accused Unlawful Chad of ordering a former DHS official “to alter multiple U.S. intelligence assessments to bury intelligence findings detrimental to Trump and exaggerate claims supportive of Trump’s own claims,” Daily Kos’ Hunter wrote. That whistleblower report also exposed corruption by Cuccinelli.
But Unlawful Chad instead doubled down following that whistleblower report, using his “State of the Homeland Address” at DHS not to address actual white supremacist terrorist threats, but to instead peddle anti-immigrant garbage for his boss. Unlawful Chad is now getting a committee hearing from Republicans to reward him for his corrupt loyalty, nearly a year after already serving on the job. He’s also getting a hearing after defying a lawful order from the House legislators to testify before them.
“As the person running the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Wolf should be here to testify, as secretaries of Homeland Security have done before,” House Homeland Security Committee chair Bennie Thompson said after the no-show, according to CNN. “Instead, we have an empty chair—an appropriate metaphor for the Trump administration’s dereliction on so many of these critical homeland security issues.”
Senate Republicans have also decided Unlawful Chad is getting a hearing following reports of a doctor performing unnecessary hysterectomies on immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the privately operated Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia. “In a phone call from El Salvador the afternoon of Sept.16, the asylum-seeker told Prism Amin performed a hysterectomy on her without her consent,” Tina Vasquez reported last week. “Before being deported in April 2018, Maria was detained at ICDC for nearly seven months.”
“Despite the upcoming hearing, it’s unclear whether Wolf will get a Senate vote before the November presidential election,” CNN added—but he should be getting impeached from a job he’s unlawfully holding, not getting a promotion to hold the job until what’s hopefully the end of Trump’s term in January. Unlawful Chad must go now.