Trump Shouldn't Get to Appoint a Supreme Court Justice in His Last Year in Office

When James Comey announced that the FBI was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails a week before the 2016 election Donald Trump famously said “It would be  ‘virtually impossible’ for a President of the United States to ‘govern or lead’ if they were under an FBI investigation.”  For once I agree with Trump. Last Monday James Comey confirmed the rumors that there has been an ongoing investigation since last summer into ties between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government to influence the election. This is a far more serious charge than using a private email server and calls into question every policy Trump attempts to put in place as possibly trying to return the favor to Russia for getting him elected.

            There has been a vacancy on the Supreme Court for over a year since Justice Antonin Scalia died in February of 2016. Republicans refused to even meet with Obama’s appointee, Merrick Garland. Now that they control both houses of Congress as well as the White House they seem to want to rush Trump’s pick through conformation as soon as possible. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is having none of it.  He has proposed delaying a vote on Neil Gorsuch as long as Trump remains under investigation by the FBI. As the FBI investigation picks up speed along with separate Hose and Senate intelligence committee investigations as well as daily revelations from the media, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Trump is unlikely to remain in office through the summer. This begs the question; if Obama wasn’t allowed to fill a seat on the Supreme Court in his final year, why should Trump? 

Trump is Living the High Life on Taxpayers' Dime

In a recent blog post in Think Progress, author Aaron Rupar noted that Trump will spend his 7th consecutiveweekend at a Trump-branded property while taxpayers foot the bill. This weekend was Trump’s fifth trip to his Mar-a-Lago club since taking office despite promises on the campaign trail that he would not take any vacations because there is so much work to be done. It’s bad enough that each trip costs taxpayers $3 million, but because it is a Trump owned property much of that money goes right into his pocket. Days before Trump’s first visit to Mar-a-Lago as president, the Trump organization announced that the initiation fees were doubling to $200,000. While Trump was very outspoken in criticizing President Obama for taking time off to play golf, in his first month in office Trump golfed six times at a cost to taxpayers of $10 million. During his eight years in office Obama averaged $12 million a year on vacations.

This frivolous waste of taxpayer’s money is especially troubling given Trump’s recent budget proposal where he seeks to do away with programs like Meals on Wheels, NPR, PBS, and the National Endowment for the Arts. As the author points out so far Trump has spent $16.5 million on trips to Mar-a-Lago alone. For that money Meals on Wheels could feed almost 6,000 seniors for a year and after school programs could feed 114,583 children for a year. This doesn’t even account for the millions we are spending on security so Melania can remain in Trump Tower where the secret service pays rent directly to the Trump Corporation or the millions we are spending flying his adult children around the world on vacations and business trips. One has to wonder how long it will take the working class Trump supporters that he promised to help to figure out they have been scammed.