Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, once a tough critic of Donald Trump, is now leading the White House witch hunt to find the senior administration official who wrote a scathing op-ed in the New York Times.
The pretend libertarian said it “would be acceptable” for the president to implement polygraph testing to get to the bottom of who wrote the editorial.
“It’s not unprecedented for people with security clearances to be asked whether or not they’re revealing things against the law under oath and also by lie detector,” Paul said, according to Newsweek. “We use the lie-detector test routinely for CIA agents and FBI agents. If you have a security clearance in the White House, I think it would be acceptable to use a lie detector test and ask people whether or not they’re taking to the media against the policy of the White House.”
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes touched on it during his broadcast on Thursday:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Chris Hayes shares the strange advice Rand Paul has for Trump on how to identify the NY Times op-ed writer. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/DrLIxckmst
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) September 7, 2018
What the hell happened to Rand Paul?
Over the course of Trump’s political career, Rand Paul has gradually gone from a critic to one of his closest allies in Congress.
As Trump’s strange allegiance to Russia has played out for all the world to see, Sen. Paul has latched onto Trump even more tightly. Weeks after the president’s disaster in Helsinki – which Paul actually defended – the Kentucky senator traveled to Russia to strengthen relations with Moscow.
Now, he is abandoning any pretense of caring about civil liberties by leading the president’s witch hunt and suggesting anyone in the administration with security clearance should be subject to a lie detector test.
Of course, it really doesn’t matter who wrote it. What matters is that those closest to the president don’t see him as mentally fit to fulfill his job. Perhaps the Kentucky senator should spend a little more time looking at that angle.
Once a Republican who prided himself on his independent streak, Rand Paul has turned into a shameless puppet for Donald Trump.
As Trump would say, “Sad!”
Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook.
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.
