Dems demand long-delayed probe of how Trump botched Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico response

Jul. 2--Democrats served notice on the Trump administration Tuesday that they are going to try to finally force an accounting for the slow, inadequate response to Hurricane Maria's devastation of Puerto Rico in 2017.

Nearly 3,000 people died after the catastrophic storm swept across the U.S. territory, prompting a response from the federal government that was considerably weaker than its mobilization after other hurricanes that year that struck Florida and Texas, according a report from University of Michigan researchers.

The response from Congress has also been considerably weaker than its response to examining the failures of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, which claimed the lives of some 1,800 people in 2005.

After Katrina, the GOP-controlled Congress held more than 30 hearings in the House and Senate, created a select committee to probe the administration of then-President George W. Bush, and issued a pair of 500-page reports with scathing conclusions and recommendations to respond better in the future.

For Maria, there were a smattering of hearings, and the Trump administration has refused to provide significant amounts of information, Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said in a letter to the Trump administration Tuesday.

"It is unacceptable for the White House to completely ignore valid requests from this Committee, particularly when they are based on strong, clear, and bipartisan precedents, and especially when they relate to the death of thousands of American citizens," Cummings wrote on a letter with Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Ohio).

"Your actions stand in stark contrast to the Bush Administration, which produced tens of thousands of documents in response to a nearly identical request," they wrote. "The only difference is that far more people died in Puerto Rico."

Cummings had asked the White House when Democrats were still in the minority last year for the same kinds of information about Maria that Republicans had gotten from the Bush administration about Katrina, including more that 500,000 pages of documents.

He has since gotten nothing.

"The President's public defiance of all congressional oversight not only obstructs us from fulfilling our responsibility under the Constitution to conduct credible oversight, but it also insults the memory of the Americans who lost their lives as a result of this disaster," Cummings and prude wrote.

The Democrats said they are probing Trump's "apparent" lack of engagement and command, the uncoordinated response, the inability to plan for food and fuel distribution ahead of time, "and the reasons for the President's inaccurate statements regarding the crisis."

Trump repeatedly claimed that only a handful of people died in Puerto Rico, and rated his administration's response as a 10 after visiting Puerto Rico and infamously tossing rolls of paper towels to people.

He has since insisted that Puerto Rico has gotten much more help than either Texas or Florida, which were hit by Irma and Harvey in 2017. However, independent analyses more than a year after the storms found aide and personnel was much slower flowing to Puerto Rico. For instance, victims of Harvey had gotten $13 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency aid alone within 180 days. Puerto Rico is just nearing that number now.

The Democrats do not specify what they will do if the Trump administration continues to ignore their requests, but warn they will "have no choice to obtain these documents through alternative means."

The White House did not immediately answer a request for comment.

Republicans on the committee did not address Cummings' unflattering comparison to past GOP efforts, but criticized him for again attacking the president.

"Chairman Cummings is at it again, manufacturing a controversy to support his obsession with attacking the President for political gain," a spokesperson for Republicans of the Oversight Committee said in a statement, pointing the the comparatively minor haul of 17,000 documents the administration did turn over and the two hearings the committee held.

"Nothing from the Administration will satisfy Chairman Cummings unless it furthers Democrats' impeachment efforts," the statement said.

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