On Sunday’s broadcast of CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Jake Tapper accused Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani of “only apply constitutional standards to the other political party and not to your own.”
Tapper said, “The White House sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week suggesting that President Trump is not going to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry thumbing his nose at the notion that the U.S. government was designed with three co-equal branches specifically to offer checks and balances on each other. When President Obama was in the White House, there was lots of oversight on the Fast and Furious scandal and the Benghazi tragedy. We covered it. There were whistleblowers. We covered them. Journalists who covered and citizens who followed Benghazi may find it stunning to find Republican members of Congress trash-talking whistle-blowers and the oversight responsibilities of the House. Stunning.”
After playing clips of Pompeo and Graham and Giuliani demanding oversight of Democratic administrations, Tapper said, “The arguments that Democratic presidents needed to comply with congressional oversight were correct. That’s how the system was set up. If you only apply constitutional standards to the other political party and not to your own, then those aren’t principles, they’re tactics.”
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