During a live Washington Post interview with Karen Tumulty today, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich must have been feeling pretty comfortable around the woman who was Time Magazine’s Congressional correspondent during his tenure in DC, because he dropped a pretty big truth bomb on stage, to the tune of audible gasps from the audience.
As the legendary journalist questioned Gingrich about what might happen for the Trump administration, should the Democrats retake one or both houses of Congress when the midterms are finished, the conversation naturally led to the subject of investigations. Surely, she mused, Trump was worried about being endlessly investigated by newly-empowered majority players from his opposition party.
Newt didn’t seem to think that was a problem:
This is a billionaire who has fought lawsuits his entire career. And he’s never noticed them, he doesn’t care. That’s why he has lawyers. So they can come at him from a hundred levels, he’ll just hire a hundred lawyers, and say, you know, ‘Call me when it’s over, I’ve gotta go do other things, I’ll see you. I’m going to China, or I’m going to campaign.’ But I don’t think he has any fear of the Democrats’ ability to investigate.”
The response was clearly not what Tumulty was expecting, and so she followed up with the obvious — what if the Democrats get their hands on Trump’s tax returns?
This is where the discussion took a much darker turn than obviously anyone in the room was expecting, because Newt got straight to the point, and made a stunning admission that I seriously doubt any less practiced a politician might have made. Gingrich, however, knows his Republican audience has no scruples when it comes to getting what they want, so he spoke very plainly:
Then they’ll be trapped into appealing to the Supreme Court, and we’ll see whether or not the Kavanaugh fight was worth it.”
It doesn’t get any clearer than that. Gingrich just admitted that the contentious fight to get suspected rapist Brett Kavanaugh seated on the Supreme Court wasn’t actually about getting the best, most qualified judge for the job — it was about installing a Justice who would be friendly not just to Republicans, but specifically to Donald Trump. The obvious implication in Gingrich’s statement is that if the fight actually was “worth it,” Kavanaugh would side with Trump and deny Democrats the ability to subpoena Trump’s taxes.
That’s very, very bad.
Watch the exchange here:
Featured image via screen capture
