Shortly after U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal pressed a top Trump administration official over concerns of politically motivated prosecutions and investigations, the Connecticut Democrat got a threat of an investigation from the president himself.
President Donald Trump called for an investigation into Blumenthal Tuesday night, re-litigating a 2008 comment in which the senator said he “served in Vietnam.” It wasn’t the first time Trump went after Blumenthal, who acknowledged he misspoke, over this matter.
But it reflected a longstanding feud that was reignited as Democrats questioned the administration on what they see as the weaponization of the government and the U.S. Department of Justice against political opponents.
“This guy shouldn’t even be in the U.S. Senate. It should be investigated, and Justice should be sought. Right now there is a Congressman sitting in prison for lying about his past during a campaign,” Trump posted on his preferred social media platform Truth Social. “Well, those lies were nothing compared to those of Richard ‘Da Nang Dick’ Blumenthal, perhaps the greatest phony in the history of the United States Senate. He should be allowed to speak no longer!”
Blumenthal brushed aside what he called an “unhinged rant” that is nothing new to him. And he argued it’s an example of the president deflecting attention as a way to not answer questions about the targeting of political foes or giving preference to those close to him.
“I must have really gotten under Donald Trump’s skin. He seems to be lashing out with personal attacks because he doesn’t want to answer questions about why he’s covering up the Epstein files or selectively prosecuting his political adversaries or dropping antitrust cases against his corrupt cronies or a lot of other issues where he is distracting from the truth,” Blumenthal told reporters Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.
Clashes between Connecticut’s U.S. senators and the Trump administration intensified this week as the battle lines hardened with no movement on a government shutdown.
Both Blumenthal and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy have repeatedly raised concerns over actions taken by Trump and his allies inside and outside of the White House. They have issued repeated warnings about threats to democracy and free speech. And while they sought to keep the heat on, the administration also fiercely defended its approach and came out swinging against specific Democratic lawmakers, including Blumenthal.
Blumenthal said he wouldn’t be “silenced or intimidated by [Trump’s] bullying.”
Trump’s post about Blumenthal stemmed from a contentious exchange at a Tuesday hearing between the senator and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that at one point turned personal.
Blumenthal used his time during the hearing to ask about conversations Bondi may have had with the president regarding the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey as well as any contact with someone tied to her former workplace. He brought signs to the hearing that showed Trump’s social media post directed toward Bondi about several Trump critics and saying that “justice should be served.” On Wednesday, Comey pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers will seek to dismiss the case as a “vindictive prosecution.”
“In fact, five days before the indictment of James Comey, he put this post up as instructions to you. He didn’t mince words. He was very open and public that you should indict James Comey and others because they are ‘Guilty as hell. No more delay. Now.’ Five days before you indicted — or a grand jury at your instructions indicted James Comey,” Blumenthal said.
He repeatedly pressed Bondi and asked whether she had any conversations with Trump about prosecuting Comey before the DOJ’s indictment.
Bondi declined to publicly detail any conversations she had with the president
“You are an attorney. You have a law degree, and you know that I’m not going to do that,” Bondi said, reading a quote from him in 2017 when Blumenthal said that no one is above the law and “the judicial process move forward without political interference.”
During their testy back-and-forth, Bondi made a dig at Blumenthal and his past characterizations of his military service.
It came up as Blumenthal questioned Bondi over mergers and any conversations she had with Brian Ballard, the head of the law firm where she formerly worked. He asked about Ballard’s lobbying the Justice Department on antitrust issues.
“Sen. Blumenthal, I cannot believe that you would accuse me of impropriety when you lied about your military service. You lied — you admitted you lied — to be elected a U.S. senator. You lied. How dare you. I’m a career prosecutor. Don’t you ever challenge my integrity,” Bondi said.
Blumenthal said he wasn’t questioning her integrity and asked her again about conversations with Ballard, which went unanswered. His five minutes of questioning during the hearing ended with her saying she’s “abided by every ethics standard.”
At a press conference in 2010, Blumenthal, who was a stateside U.S. Marine Corps reservist during the Vietnam War, denied he lied about his military service and acknowledged that he “misspoke” in 2008. At that time, he told an audience in Norwalk, “We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam.”
“I fully addressed the issue of my military service 15 years ago, and the voters of Connecticut had rejected it in three separate elections when they overwhelmingly voted in favor of me,” Blumenthal said Wednesday. “I’m proud of my military service, having been in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve for six years and honorably discharged as a sergeant.”
Meanwhile, hours after Blumenthal and Bondi’s clash, Murphy continued his grim warnings about how democracy in the U.S. could slip into authoritarianism through various efforts like National Guard troop deployments to certain cities and the threats to broadcast licenses of media groups.
He went step-by-step to explain that democracies don’t always fall victim to seminal moments like a coup or violence. Instead, Murphy argued, a democracy typically erodes more slowly over time because “the party in power just contracts the space for dissent, for speech, for political opposition.”
“You can’t see the indictment of Comey, the cancellation of [Jimmy] Kimmel, the troops in Chicago as different events. They are all part of the same story. They are all part of a plan, a well-thought out plan to try to destroy American democracy and create a new set of rules that will allow Trump and his allies to rule forever,” Murphy said in a floor speech Tuesday as a few other senators spoke about the shutdown.
“I know this sounds extreme. It is,” he continued. “But if you connect the dots, if you allow yourself to see the whole story, the totality of this story, you will see the grave danger that we are in.”
Murphy, who has been lauded on the left as an emerging leader of the party and criticized by the right as a Trump antagonist, has been persistent in his argument that democracy is on the line. He acknowledged Tuesday that his Republican colleagues dismiss his persistent warnings as an exaggeration. And the White House and Trump himself have taken issue with Murphy’s rhetoric that they have described as inflammatory.
But for Murphy, it’s a sentiment he believes must be deliberately spelled out before it’s too late.
“We aren’t on the verge of an authoritarian takeover. We are in the middle of it,” Murphy said. “It’s not certain to be successful, but if we aren’t clear-eyed about what’s happening, then we have no chance to arrest it.”
The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation.
This story was originally published in the Connecticut Mirror.
