Mitch McConnell must recuse — it’s Ethics 101

Mitch McConnell, the hard-line Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, is in a suddenly familiar Trump-era position. Events have put the Kentucky senator in an unethical position that can only be resolved by his complete recusal from Senate matters concerning the investigation into relations between the president’s campaign and Russian representatives.

If the average American knows one thing about McConnell, it is probably the fact that he is leading the Senate Republicans’ unified position on the Russia-Trump team investigation. McConnell has stuck to a hard line that a stronger, more independent probe is not necessary. He insists — just as he insisted Barack Obama would not get a second term — that the current Senate committee investigation is sufficient. 

But how can McConnell make a fair judgment about how to investigate Trump’s close associates when his wife works for Trump in one of the highest-level government jobs in the country? This is ethics 101. 

Elaine Chao, McConnell’s wife of 24 years, works for Donald Trump, as his secretary of Transportation. She is a long-time, distinguished public servant who has served in many high-level public and nonprofit positions (including secretary of Labor for George W. Bush), and is one of only four women in Trump’s Cabinet. Like all executive branch positions, her continued service depends on the president’s continued satisfaction. And Trump is not shy in expressing his displeasure — just ask those fired within the first few months: James Comey, Michael Flynn, Sally Yates. 

{mosads}McConnell should have recused himself long ago from the Trump-related investigation. (And he should have recused himself from his wife’s confirmation vote.) But something changed last week, that made immediate recusal mandatory.

The president’s handling of the Comey firing, combined with White House confusion, contradiction and suspect circumstances, has made the president’s actions part of the cluster of issues that the FBI and committees need to investigate. As Trump has inserted himself very clearly into the matter, McConnell can no longer pretend to serve as an impartial representative of the people of Kentucky or the United States on this matter.

To be blunt, if McConnell were to take a stand that made Trump unhappy, such as supporting a call for a select committee or the Justice Department’s appointment of a special prosecutor, Trump could retaliate by firing Chao. Or the president could simply undermine and embarrass Chao within the Cabinet and government. All of this puts the Department of Transportation at risk of instability, confusion and politicization.

The investigation into the Trump campaign and administration aides is too important to be mishandled due to Mitch McConnell’s refusal so far to acknowledge his unethical situation.

McConnell may have refused to recuse himself from his wife’s confirmation vote based on the argument that Trump might have chosen Chao anyway for the post, even if she were not married to the Senate leader. As she has served in the Cabinet before, that is of course possible. Although the nation allowed McConnell to vote on his wife’s confirmation without much comment, the stakes here are higher than choosing who fills the Transportation seat at Trump’s Cabinet meetings.

McConnell Says No To Special Prosecutor On Russia Probe https://t.co/puNRUVte3t pic.twitter.com/yNZxdFwMC6

— The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 10, 2017

In the middle of our national crisis, determining the course of one of the three ongoing investigations of the president’s associates is Mitch McConnell and his conflict of interest.

This situation is a spousal form of nepotism. McConnell’s involvement, like Jeff Sessions’s and Devin Nunes’s before him, should not be allowed to cast a permanent shadow over our confidence in the fairness and prudence of our government’s decisions — whatever they may be — about how to proceed in dealing with the current national political crisis.

It is time for McConnell to follow Sessions and Nunes partially out of the swamp, and recuse himself from managing the affairs of the Senate that in any way influence the investigations of Trump and his associates.

Mark Feinberg, Ph.D., is a research professor at Pennsylvania State University. Follow him on Twitter @MrkFnbrg

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