President Donald Trump’s targeting of Rep. Ilhan Omar threatens more than one of his fiercest critics — it challenges Congress itself, New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie warned.
Speaking on The Bulwark’s podcast, Bouie described the administration’s pursuit of the Minnesota Democrat as an “aggressive abuse of power” and accused Republican lawmakers of failing to defend their institution.
“I really think you should understand this as an attack on Congress as well as an attack on this particular member,” Bouie said.
The New York Times columnist went on to criticize the investigation as hinging on decades-old immigration paperwork completed by Omar’s late father when she was a child. The Bulwark’s Tim Miller said on the podcast that the escalation to a search of her home was essentially “authoritarian theater.”
“Treating her like she’s John Gotti or something,” Bouie interjected.
Bouie argued that Omar was being targeted because she is both a presidential critic and Somali American. But he said Congress should be confronting the administration rather than leaving Democrats to protest alone.
“Congress is supposed to be the one that, you know, would be asking the attorney general in hearings to answer for this investigation of one of its members,” he said.
The Republican-controlled Congress’s unwillingness to act, he argued Friday, enables the administration.
“There’s no institutional pushback,” Bouie said.
Democratic objections alone risk being dismissed as another partisan dispute, he added.
“What you really do need is another institution to say no, you can’t — you can’t say that. That’s wrong.”
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