Elijah Cummings is ready to investigate Trump

POLITICO's Off Message

POLITICO

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🗓️ 2 October 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

If Democrats retake the House, Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings will likely become the new chair of the Oversight committee. Here, a preview of what to expect from their coming investigations of the Trump administration. Cummings says President Donald Trump “is a person [who] calls a lie ‘the truth’ and the truth ‘a lie.’” He thinks the president violates the Constitution’s emoluments clause daily, and sees an abnormal tolerance for corruption and misconduct emanating straight out of the Oval Office. And, in the eyes of the 67-year-old Democrat, just as troubling is the notion that Congress has fallen flat on its Constitutional duty to check the administration’s whims. Expect that to change if Democrats retake the House in November. Then, Rep. Cummings will likely become the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, giving him subpoena power and the ability to call as many hearings as he wants on whichever topics he chooses. In light of everything he’s learned about Trump—and especially after Senate testimony last week by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, which Cummings saw as dishonest—the congressman doubts he’ll be able to believe any denial from anyone in the administration, regardless of whether or not they’re under oath, he said in an interview for POLITICO’s Off Message podcast. POLITICO's Off Message podcast is hosted by Isaac Dovere and is part of the Panoply network. Produced by Zack Stanton. Executive Producer is Dave Shaw. Theme music by Podington Bear. Get more at politico.com/podcasts/off-message Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to OffMessage. I'm Isaac DeVare.
0:04.6	My mother on her dying bed, my mother on her dying bed, the last thing she said to me was do not let them take away I write the vote.
0:17.6	And then she died. Why? Because she had seen the pain that people had gone through to get
0:24.7	the vote what it meant to see the hat for her she had a she has a picture of Barack Obama I mean
0:32.1	she hangs over like she had Jesus Christ she Today's guest, Elijah Cummings,
0:39.2	Congressman from Maryland,
0:40.4	and the ranking member
0:41.2	of the House Government and Oversight Committee.
0:43.6	If Democrats take the House this November,
0:46.2	and polls indicate there's a good chance of that happening,
0:49.3	he'll be the person in charge of investigating
0:51.5	the Trump White House and Trump administration.
0:54.0	He'll hold hearings.
0:55.3	I'll have subpoena power.
0:57.7	I bet that most of you don't know who Cummings is.
0:59.9	He's pretty low profile as far as high-ranking members of Congress go.
1:03.4	Preparing for this interview, I was amazed at just how little has been written about him over 21 years in Congress,
1:08.2	in which he's become one of the most powerful Democrats, locking
1:11.1	horns with Daryl Issa and other Republicans, and set to be probably one of the four most
1:15.3	important Democrats in the majority, if they get there, along with Nancy Pelosi, or whoever
1:20.1	the Speaker is, Adam Schiff chairing the Intelligence Committee, which will oversee any questions
1:24.6	about the Russia investigation, and Jerry Nadler, chairing the Judiciary Committee, which will oversee how questions about the Russian investigation, and Jerry Nadler, chairing
	...

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