Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:47 pm
Days after promising to fight insider trading charges and continue his re-election bid, Republican congressman and Trump swamp creature Chris Collins announced he would suspend his campaign in New York’s 27th congressional district.
Instead of acknowledging that his crimes finally caught up with him, Collins blamed Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi for his troubles.
In a statement, the GOP representative said, “Democrats are laser focused on taking back the House, electing Nancy Pelosi speaker, and then launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump.”
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“They would like nothing more than to elect an ‘Impeach Trump’ Democrat in this District, which is something that neither our country or my party can afford,” he added before finally announcing his decision to end his bid.
The full statement:
— Rep. Chris Collins (@RepChrisCollins) August 11, 2018
The GOP is desperate ahead of the midterms
The fact that Collins used the first portion of his statement to whine about Democrats shows how desperate the party is to spin this damning development for Republicans.
The disgraced Trump ally can frame his decision any way he wants, but his corruption is likely to affect the party at the worst possible time. In fact, the insider trading scandal might turn out to be a party-wide controversy that could bring down more than a half-dozen other GOP lawmakers.
As I wrote on Wednesday:
First, it pushes Collins’ deep-red congressional seat toward the Democrats at a time when they have no seats to spare. Second, the New York Republican has a connection to Trump, further solidifying the narrative that the president surrounds himself with criminals. Third, it makes the GOP promise of draining the swamp an even bigger joke than it already was.
The GOP congressman’s corruption and his subsequent decision to suspend his campaign is not the shrewd work of the Democratic Party, Nancy Pelosi or the “Impeach Trump” movement.
But there’s no question that it will further boost Democratic candidates all across the country as voters look for candidates who will serve as a check on the swamp Donald Trump has created during his time in Washington.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
