By Russell Berman:
Top lawmakers and party aides accused the White House of blindsiding them with an executive order on immigration that sowed chaos at major U.S. airports, contradicting administration officials who claimed that Capitol Hill had taken a leading role in writing the policy. Senior aides to the chairmen of the House Homeland Security, Judiciary, and Foreign Affairs committees all said the White House failed to consult them on the immigration directive, which led to lawsuits and widespread protests across the country over the weekend. More Republican lawmakers issued statements critical of Trump’s action on Sunday evening and Monday, even as many said they supported a temporary halt to the refugee program and restrictions on travel from Muslim countries.
“It would have been smarter to coordinate with us,” Representative Dave Brat of Virginia, a Trump ally, said in a phone interview on Monday. “They could have done a better job announcing how the complexities were going to work in advance.”
Republicans were particularly angry that the Trump administration did not initially exempt green-card holders, or those who had served as military or diplomatic interpreters from the ban. “In the future, such policy changes should be better coordinated with the agencies implementing them and with Congress to ensure we get it right—and don’t undermine our nation’s credibility while trying to restore it,” Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement.
A senior administration official told reporters in a background briefing on Sunday night that “Republicans on Capitol Hill wrote” the policy—a statement that Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, defended on Monday. But multiple top Republican aides said the assertion was false.
“Ha! That’s my formal response,” said one senior GOP aide. “There was precisely zero coordination with us on the drafting of this executive order.” The aide said that one or two “rogue staffers” with the House Judiciary Committee had worked informally with the White House on the order, but that the administration never formally involved the relevant congressional leaders. Separately, an aide with the Judiciary Committee said that the panel’s chairman, Representative Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, was “not consulted by the administration”—a sign that the staffers working under him had helped the White House without Goodlatte’s knowledge. Politico reported Monday night that the Judiciary Committee staffers signed nondisclosure agreements.
The aides insisted on anonymity to avoid provoking a further fight with the new president, but they spoke with more candor than the more diplomatic statements that GOP members of Congress have released in recent days. Officials said John Kelly, the secretary of homeland security, will meet with a bipartisan group of lawmakers Tuesday in the Capitol to discuss the the executive order.
The Full Story (January 31, 2017)
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