Senate Republicans may have managed to quash the impeachment trial without calling forth any new witnesses or seriously considering the evidence against President Donald Trump. And the president may feel vindicated and largely invulnerable as a result.
But, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday, that doesn't mean Democrats don't have one last big play to rein in the president's abuses of power. They can use the first and strongest authority delegated to them: the power of the purse.
"What can Democrats really do when it comes to oversight of the president?" asked Cooper. "I mean, now that impeachment is over, does seem like there are fewer and fewer guardrails, if any."
"Well, they're constantly coming to the Congress for more money for new programs, or changes to existing programs, or they're coming to the Congress and the House for appropriations," said Krishnamoorthi, who sits on the House Oversight Committee. "And so I think at this point, I think we have to use each of those opportunities as a chance to basically make sure that if we are going to provide further funding, or we are going to authorize extensions of existing programs or new programs, that it be conditioned on good behavior, and there isn't really a lot of that going on right now at the DOJ."
"Especially given what we know about the [Roger] Stone situation, but also the fact that Attorney General Barr has called for a second line of prosecutors to basically micromanage or question the decisions in the Michael Flynn prosecution, and now he set up some kind of inbox or some kind of special corridor for Rudy Giuliani to provide dirt to the DOJ about the Bidens or current enemies of the president from Ukraine," added Krishnamoorthi.
Watch below:
