On Saturday afternoon, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) was on Fox News with Neil Cavuto discussing impeachment when she told a real whopper, and clearly wasn’t expecting Cavuto to call her out on it.
“This is the first time to my knowledge—I-I have been in the United States Senate since 2001—where the Government Accounting [sic] Office has said that the president actually broke the law on this,” she said.
Stabenow was referring to last week’s legal opinion from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluding that by withholding aid to Ukraine, the Trump administration broke the law because Congress had appropriated those funds and the executive branch, therefore, did not have the right to place any conditions on that aid being delivered.
Stabenow’s knowledge, however, was incorrect, and Cavuto was quick to point out to her that she was completely wrong.
“Well that same accounting office, as you know, senator, said the same about Barack Obama, in an almost similar incident here,” Cavuto said.
In 2014, the GAO ruled that Obama’s prisoner swap of five detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for deserter Bowe Bergdahl violated federal law because Congress was not informed about the swap.
But Cavuto wasn’t finished schooling Stabenow. “I’m not here to justify whether, you know, if their word is golden, but I am saying, you know, there’s enough precedent here where the GAO has raised these types of concerns with other presidents. Right?” he asked.
“I think they’re legitimate regardless of who they raise them with. And I think that’s part of what we have to address,” Stabenow replied, not answering the question.
I’m watching Neil Cavito just call out Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow trying to deceive people. Not used to tough questions? pic.twitter.com/axqrku8cjI
— Joe (@Joseph98746995) January 25, 2020
So, was Stabenow suffering from selective memory loss, or was she simply not counting on Neil Cavuto to point out that she was lying? The truth is, the Obama administration was found to have violated the law at least seven times, once for violating its own law, Obamacare. It is also worth noting that Joe Biden’s threat to Ukraine to withhold a $1 billion loan unless they fired the prosecutor investigating his son’s company would also be illegal based on the GAO’s opinion about the temporary hold on lethal aid held up by the Trump administration.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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