If certain Republicans — Matt Gaetz (R-FL) foremost among them — won’t be sad to see Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) leave the House of Representatives come year’s end, neither will certain Democrats who saw McCarthy as an unprincipled partner in governance — one whose slippery machinations and dysfunctional fealty to Donald Trump rendered him unreliable.
That’s the opinion of Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who flayed McCarthy on his way out the door, saying the Californian who became the first vacated House Speaker “did nothing for this country or his Constitution at its moment of crisis.”
Raskin on McCarthy leaving Congress: Good riddance to him. He did nothing for his country or his constitution at its moment of crisis pic.twitter.com/O5X6tBUtWZ
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 7, 2023
Explaining how McCarthy was for a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection before he was against it, Raskin describes McCarthy’s Trump-induced equivocation and failure at a critical time in the nation’s history.
McCarthy, Raskin says, abandoned his own proposal for a Jan 6 investigation right after abandoning his principles, which Raskin says happened during a trip to Mar-a-Lago that helped rehabilitate the former President in the wake of the insurrection.
“[McCarthy] showed no backbone” and “he showed no courage,” Raskin said, instead taking orders from a former President who had been defeated in the election.
Further proof, in Raskin’s assessment, that McCarthy had no backbone was his later decision “to support an impeachment investigation against Joe Biden without even identifying a potential crime.”
McCarthy said, greenlighting the impeachment inquiry that there were “allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives.”
