Here's What Trump and the GOP Aren't Telling You About the Reversal on Congressional Oversight
"Sorry folks, but there’s absolutely nothing to celebrate here and Trump damn sure wasn’t any sort of “strong leader” who stood up against Republicans trying to make unethical behavior easier to get away with in Congress. Let’s not forget that, aside from being one of the most dishonest human beings on the planet, Trump’s still refused to release his tax returns. That’s rather shady and — dare I say — unethical. The reason why Trump was upset over this move wasn’t because he opposed it, it’s because the optics of it were horrible. It looks really bad when one of the first things a new Congress does is hold a fairly secretive meeting during a holiday where a top priority was to gut an independent watchdog group that oversees the very people voting to get rid of that oversight. Just look at what Trump said, “… as unfair as it may be” — “it” being the independent ethics watchdog. So it’s not as if Trump was taking some sort of a moral stand against members of Congress trying to make getting away with crooked behavior easier. This was Trump trying to make himself look good (what’s new, right?) by appearing to oppose this move, when the truth is Republicans are still going to gut the power this watchdog has. What Republicans will likely do is wait a few months until a story that dominates the headlines for a few days rolls around, then they’ll once again target this group when they think nobody will notice. But make no mistake about it, they will eventually get rid of independent oversight of congressional behavior. This reversal of course was nothing more than smoke and mirrors, an “optics move” for Donald Trump to make himself look better and Republicans to “save face” after miscalculating the backlash they’d receive following this extremely shady vote."
