Thursday, November 8, 2018
In an interview Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) would not say whether Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should reclaim the speaker's gavel. Welch said he had not committed, publicly or privately, to back Pelosi or any potential challenger.
"At this point, what I want is to make certain we get some reforms [to the legislative process] that'll apply whoever is speaker," he said.
Pelosi, the only declared candidate, served as speaker during Welch's first two terms in office, from 2007 through 2010. Now that Democrats are poised to control the House for the first time in eight years, she is hoping to return to the post.
Tags: Peter Welch , Nancy Pelosi , Congress , U.S. Rep. , Vermont , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
"Good riddance!" Welch said. "This guy is the worst attorney general in my lifetime. I mean, he's the enforcer of family separation, condones voter suppression, the Muslim ban. This guy's absolutely awful."
But Welch, who won his seventh term in Congress the day before, does have one fear: "President Trump is pretty good at finding bad people, and he might replace [Sessions] with somebody that's worse."
For now, Sessions' chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, will serve as acting attorney general, according to the White House. He will oversee Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and allegations of obstruction of justice by the president and his associates.
That has Welch and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) worried, because Whitaker has supported defunding the investigation and limiting its scope. Both men said Wednesday that Whitaker should steer clear of the Mueller probe.
"I am strongly in favor of him recusing himself," Welch said. "It would be a way of him providing more reassurance that they're not going to mess with Mueller."
Vermont's third member of Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), did not respond to an interview request.
Tags: Senator , Patrick Leahy , Peter Welch , Bernie Sanders , Jeff Sessions , Matthew Whitaker , Image , Web Only
Monday, October 29, 2018
“Right now, my focus is on the year 2018, but if you’re asking me to make an absolute pledge as to whether I’ll be running for president or not, I’m not going to make that pledge,” Vermont's junior senator said. “The simple truth is I have not made that decision. But I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I may not run. I may. But on the other hand, I may not.”
Asked again whether he would commit to serving out a third term, Sanders said, “If I’m elected president of the United States? Mmm. Probably impossible to be a senator and a president at the same time. So the answer to that is probably no. But I haven’t made that decision as to whether I’ll run.”
He added, “If I run [for president] and win, the likelihood is I will not be Vermont’s senator.”
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , U.S. Senate , Lawrence Zupan , Folasade Adeluola , Russell Beste , Bruce Busa , Edward Gilbert Jr. , Brad Peacock , John Svitavsky , 2020 , Election 2018 , Statewide 2018 , Image , Video , Web Only
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Khashoggi entered the consulate October 2 and hasn't been seen since. The Saudi government — after initially denying any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance — has acknowledged that the critic of the Saudi government was killed inside the consulate in a premeditated plot.
In an op-ed in Thursday’s New York Times, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the United States should end its military aid for Saudi Arabia’s ongoing war against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“The United States is deeply engaged in this war,” Sanders wrote. “We are providing bombs the Saudi-led coalition is using, we are refueling their planes before they drop those bombs, and we are assisting with intelligence.”
Tags: Senator , Jamal Khashoggi , Bernie Sanders , Patrick Leahy , Peter Welch , Donald Trump , Saudi Arabia , human rights , Image , Web Only
Monday, October 1, 2018
“I hope for the sake of the country he’s not the next justice on the Supreme Court,” Leahy said in his Burlington office Monday morning. “I think it would diminish the court.”
Leahy said he’s “never seen anything like this” in Washington, D.C., referring to the past week of testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when she was 15 and he was 17. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, she described the incident in detail.
Leahy said his past experience as a prosecutor in Chittenden County gave him confidence in Ford’s story.
“I would have considered her a very believable witness,” Leahy said.
Tags: Sen. Patrick Leahy , Brett Kavanaugh , Donald Trump , Christine Blasey Ford , sexual assault , Supreme Court , Judiciary Committee , Image , Web Only
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) made the most of his brief opportunity to question Christine Blasey Ford about her accusation that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in 1982 while a male friend did nothing to intervene.
"What is the strongest memory you have of the incident?" Leahy asked. "Something you cannot forget?"
"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two," Ford replied, her voice breaking. "I was underneath one of them while the two laughed. Two friends having a really good time with one another."
The exchange came during a Thursday hearing of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, examining one of multiple sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee chair, restricted each member to five minutes of questioning for each of the two witnesses: Ford and Kavanaugh. Leahy used his five minutes to question Ford about her memory of the incident in an effort to bolster her credibility.
Later in the day, Leahy had a thoroughly antagonistic exchange with Kavanaugh.
Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when she was 15 years old and Kavanaugh was 17. She has said that Mark Judge, a friend of Kavanaugh's, was in the room during the assault. At the beginning of the hearing, Ford retold the story, her voice frequently breaking as she did so.
Tags: Brett Kavanaugh , Christine Blasey Ford , Patrick Leahy , Rachel Mitchell , Chuck Grassley , U.S. Supreme Court , nominee , court , judge , hearing , Senate Judiciary Committee , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
In a letter Leahy and all nine other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Trump early Wednesday afternoon, the senators said that the president should reconsider his choice for the court. "Judge Kavanaugh has staunchly declared his respect for women and issued blanket denials of any possible misconduct, but those declarations are in serious doubt," they wrote.
The Judiciary Committee Democrats sent a second letter later Wednesday to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the panel. They called on Grassley to cancel a Thursday hearing in which Kavanaugh and another alleged victim, Christine Blasey Ford, are scheduled to testify, as well as a Friday committee vote on the nomination.
Tags: Senator , Patrick Leahy , Brett Kavanaugh , Peter Welch , Bernie Sanders , Image , Web Only
Monday, September 24, 2018
"It would be very, very damaging — both to the president and to the Republican Party because it would scream of cover-up," said Leahy, the senior-most member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Leahy made the remarks near the end of a day of furious speculation over whether Rosenstein would offer his resignation or Trump would fire him. His status has been uncertain since Friday, when the New York Times reported that Rosenstein had suggested in the spring of 2017 that he wear a wire to record the president and seek Trump's removal from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. The White House said Monday afternoon that Rosenstein remained at the Department of Justice, but that he was scheduled to meet with the president on Thursday.
According to Leahy, firing Rosenstein could effectively end Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election because Rosenstein would be replaced as acting attorney general overseeing the inquiry by Solicitor General Noel Francisco, whom Leahy referred to as "a Trump acolyte."
Tags: Patrick Leahy , Rod Rosenstein , Robert Mueller , Brett Kavanaugh , senator , U.S. Senate , U.S. Supreme Court , nominee , Donald Trump , president , Noel Francisco , Image , Web Only
Greenwood said he doesn’t know how the tweet appeared on his account but confirmed that he deleted it.
“I don’t think I did that,” Greenwood said Monday. “I don’t know how that got there. And I saw that and I deleted it. I don’t know. I can’t say how it got there. I deleted it.”
Tags: Christine Blasey Ford , Chet Greenwood , Vermont Republican Party , Brett Kavanaugh , U.S. Supreme Court , Orleans County Republican Party , GOP , Image , Web Only
Monday, September 17, 2018
After a California professor alleged Sunday that Judge Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her when they both were teenagers, Vermont's congressional delegation urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to halt its consideration of his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
All three members — Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) — said the committee's planned Thursday vote on the nomination should be postponed until authorities could fully investigate the claims. In an interview with Seven Days on Monday afternoon, Leahy said that Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, should both testify before the committee, on which Leahy serves.
“She’s willing to testify under oath,” the senator said. “Let her!”
Details of the allegations have trickled out since the committee's ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), briefed fellow Democrats last Wednesday, but Blasey Ford’s identity was not known until Sunday, when she shared her story with the Washington Post. She said that at a party in suburban Maryland in the early 1980s, a drunken Kavanaugh had pinned her to a bed, groped her and attempted to remove her clothes.
“I find her allegations worth looking into professionally,” Leahy said in the interview. “I mean, she’s shown some very incredible courage even coming in here and we’re dealing with a nominee whose veracity is already an issue.”
Tags: Senator , Brett Kavanaugh , Patrick Leahy , Bernie Sanders , Peter Welch , U.S. Supreme Court , Congressman , Senate Judiciary Committee , Christine Blasey Ford , Image , Web Only