September 23, 2019 09:54 AM UTC

How Can Cory Gardner Stay Silent On UkraineGate?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Politico:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday delivered a blunt warning to the Trump administration over its refusal so far to share details of an explosive whistleblower complaint, amid intensifying pressure from the vocal pro-impeachment wing of the Democratic Caucus.

Pelosi wrote in a rare weekend letter to lawmakers that President Donald Trump would enter “a grave new chapter of lawlessness” if he succeeded in blocking Congress from learning about his reported conversations pressing Ukranian officials to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2020 presidential contest…

Trump’s reported talks with the Ukranian government about Biden — which the president appeared to confirm on Sunday — have outraged the Democratic Party, which had already been investigating the president for, in part, being receptive to help from a foreign government in his 2016 campaign.

Over the past few days, the story of President Donald Trump’s pressure on the newly elected President of Ukraine in July to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden over unsubstantiated charges of corruption by Biden’s son, followed by the blocking of a shipment of arms to Ukraine after this conversation, has rapidly escalated into a scandal on par with any that have provoked threats of impeachment in the last three years. Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post frames the politics of the situation as the week begins–and a familiar local name jumps out once again:

Imagine Senate races in 2020 for Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and others outside of deep-red America. So, Sen. Collins, you think it is perfectly fine to go to a foreign power to help sway our election outcome? Sen. Tillis, if your opponent goes to, say, China to dig up dirt on you, is that fair game?

The argument for Democrats — namely that Republicans are spineless lackeys who have violated their oaths of office — is far easier to maintain than the Republicans’ assertion that it’s nuts to remove a president who goes to a foreign power to help reelect him.

As of this writing, Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado has been dead silent on the “UkraineGate” controversy since it broke last week. And that’s more than a little odd: Gardner, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly rushed to Ukraine’s defense in recent years while condemning the Russian annexation of Crimea, the shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists, and calling for Russia to be declared a state sponsor of terrorism. Google “Cory Gardner” +Ukraine and read your fill.

And then ask yourself: where has Cory Gardner been for the last four days?