October 03, 2019 09:30 AM UTC

No Comment Cory: Dodgy As Ever

• 2 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Cory Gardner is a United States Senator. This is a full-time job that fundamentally requires Gardner to take a position on important issues of the day. We assume that Gardner has opinions on things, but it is hard to know for sure because the Yuma Republican goes to such great efforts to avoid discussing…well, anything.

In early August we published a roundup of Gardner’s powers of invisibility that we titled, “No Comment Cory.” Over a period of about one month, we found more than 12 examples of Gardner or his office flat-out refusing to offer comment on a variety of topics. Two months later, we took a look to see if anything had changed.

It hadn’t.

August 9, 2019

The Denver Post wondered what Gardner thinks about a new television ad critical of his refusal to take any sort of meaningful action to curb gun violence in the United States:

Gardner’s campaign had no comment on the ad.

August 21, 2019

Proving that no subject is too inane to be dodged, Gardner was asked by the Washington Post about visiting the Colorado offices of Amazon.com:

Gardner stayed mum on Twitter about his Amazon tour, even though he tweeted about visits to Maxar Technologies in Westminster, Colo., and Swisslog Healthcare in Broomfield, Colo., the same day. Gardner spokeswoman Annalyse Keller declined to comment.

August 26, 2019

The Huffington Post wondered what Gardner thought about the rising popularity of Cardboard Cory:

Gardner’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment from HuffPost.

September 4, 2019

The Colorado Sun came this close to getting a comment from Gardner’s office about his decision to again support President Trump’s “emergency declaration” for border wall money:

Gardner’s office did not respond to a request for comment until midday Wednesday, nearly 24 hours after the story of the Peterson impact first broke. In it, the Republican blamed Democrats for the situation leading to the reallocated funds.

 

September 8, 2019

How about CNN? Would Gardner respond for a story about gun violence prevention measures? You already know the answer to this:

The Gardner campaign did not make the senator available for an interview with CNN for this story and did not respond to questions about whether the senator would support or oppose expanded background check or federal red flag legislation if either came up for a vote in the Senate.

September 11, 2019

Politico wondered about Gardner’s second vote in support of President Trump’s “emergency declaration,” which stalled an $8 million project at Peterson Air Force base:

When asked Wednesday if he’d support the national emergency declaration, Gardner responded: “I haven’t seen the resolution of disapproval, but I mean, the Democrats refuse to fund the border.”

September 19, 2019

The Colorado Sun reported on a story about federal leadership PACs. They tried and failed to get a response:

Gardner’s campaign declined to comment about Project West PAC.

September 24, 2019

What say Gardner about impeachment proceedings against President Trump? As Politico found, not much:

Gardner said Trump’s conversations with the president of Ukraine about Joe Biden and his family as well as a whistleblower complaint about the president’s conversations with a world leader are a “serious issue.” Asked if he still supported Trump’s reelection, Gardner declined to address the question: “Let’s find out what’s happening. Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

September 26, 2019

It’s your turn, Wall Street Journal:

Vulnerable GOP Sen. Cory Gardner declines to answer questions about the whistleblower report en route to a Foreign Affairs hearing

— Lindsay Wise (@lindsaywise) September 26, 2019

September 26, 2019

As The Hill found, Gardner will go to great lengths to explain why he won’t explain:

Gardner was on his phone and unavailable to comment at a vote shortly before lunchtime. His office did not respond to a request for comment.

September 26, 2019

9News reporter/anchor Kyle Clark had some questions about Gardner concerning his continued support for President Trump’s “emergency declaration”:

For weeks now we’ve been asking Senator Gardner’s staff whether the Senator knew that Colorado could lose money when he was out there publicly promising that Colorado would be spared cuts. We’ve been trying to figure out, did the Trump administration pull a fast one on Gardner, or did Gardner know that we could lose a military project when he seemed to indicate otherwise. Once again today, Sen. Gardner’s spokeswoman would not answer that question.

September 27, 2019

The Denver Post got bupkus when they tried to ask Gardner about impeachment proceedings:

Gardner did not talk to us.

— Cindi Andrews (@CindiinCO) September 28, 2019

Ditto RealVail.com on a question about Gardner’s thoughts on the Ukraine whistleblower:

Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner called the whistleblower allegations a “serious issue” but would not comment further until more facts are available.

We don’t pretend to understand the political or strategic calculations behind Gardner’s consistent dodginess, but there’s simply no denying that inaccessibility is the Gardner brand.