Pat Toomey suggests pick to head FBI, talks GOP divide on Medicaid

Morning Call (Allentown, PA)

May 13--U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey didn't support Merrick Garland for the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Pennsylvania Republican sees a new possibility for the judge -- head of the FBI.

Toomey suggested Garland as a replacement for ousted FBI Director James Comey during an interview Friday morning on NewsRadio 790 WAEB.

"He's a former prosecutor and had terrific reputation," Toomey told radio host Bobby Gunther Walsh. "Yeah, he's a Democrat, but nobody thinks he's a partisan guy. He's not been about politics in his career."

Garland, chief judge of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, worked at the Department of Justice during the Clinton administration. In his most high-profile case, he oversaw the investigation and prosecution following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Toomey's remark -- part of an interview in which he also discussed the debate on replacing Obamacare -- wasn't the first time a lawmaker suggested Garland as a Comey replacement.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, this week told Fox NewsGarland is "someone who's got likely allies as a potential FBI director nominee in both political parties."

Tapping Garland for the post would open up a vacancy for President Donald Trump to fill on the D.C. Circuit Court, which has seven Democratic and four Republican appointees.

Garland was nominated by former President Barack Obama to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016. But Republican senators, including Toomey, last year opposed even voting on Garland, arguing the next president should fill the seat.

Toomey said after meeting with Garland last year that he was "not convinced" by Garland's decisions or their conversation that he would serve as an adequate check against the executive branch. During Friday's interview, Toomey described running the FBI as "a totally different function" from serving as a Supreme Court justice.

When fired, Comey was supervising an investigation of Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and the possibility of cooperation between people linked to Trump's campaign and Moscow. Democrats have called for a special prosecutor to take over that investigation. Toomey said the FBI should continue the probe.

He added Friday that the results of that investigation will be more likely to be believed if the new FBI director "is not seen as somebody who has close ties to the Trump administration."

Toomey described Comey as having "lost all credibility" due to his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. That was part of the Trump administration's explanation for why the FBI director was dismissed.

But Toomey said he would have preferred to see Comey let go in the initial days of Trump's tenure. Doing it now has "fed into this really ridiculous narrative that somehow this is about ending or undermining the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign," he said.

He dismissed the idea that Comey's departure will affect the probe, saying it is "a rude insult" to the agency's career investigators.

The senator also discussed the health care bill his chamber is crafting. The U.S. House approved its own measure last week.

Toomey is among roughly a dozen GOP senators working directly on the Senate version. While he believes the Senate is likely to pass a health care bill, Toomey said finding a consensus on the many issues involved will be difficult.

"For instance, just among Republican senators, you have this divide: Some of the senators who represent states that took the Medicaid expansion, they want to preserve as much as possible of that," Toomey said. "So there's a whole big portion of Obamacare that they want to keep as-is. Most of us want to at least dramatically change that and scale it back."

Pennsylvania is among 31 states that expanded Medicaid coverage under Obamacare, allowing coverage for 700,000 more people not poor enough for traditional Medicaid nor well-off enough to afford subsidized Obamacare coverage.

The federal government initially paid 100 percent of the cost for those additional enrollees, a rate that will decrease to 90 percent by 2020. For traditional Medicaid enrollees, who are low-income, disabled or elderly, the federal government pays about 57 percent of the cost.

Under the House bill, the extra federal funding for those enrolled under the Medicaid expansion largely would end in 2020. Federal payments would continue at the same level for individuals already enrolled as long as they remain continuously in the program, whose individuals typically cycle off and on as their income and other circumstances change.

New expansion enrollees would be covered at the same rate as traditional Medicaid, leaving states to decide whether to fill that financial gap.

"Nobody is kicked off, no eligibility rules change whatsoever," Toomey said. "The House bill simply makes the point to the states: If you want to cover this population, then you have to contribute your share of the cost like you do for all the other people who are covered on Medicaid. And we have Republican senators who are joining with Democratic senators saying, 'That's draconian.'"

Toomey said one of his priorities will be to limit how fast the federal government's Medicaid payments to states will grow in future years.

"I'm arguing that the rate at which it increases must be manageable," Toomey said. "And I have colleagues who say, 'No, it must be basically whatever the governors want.'"

Those arguments won't be easy to untangle. But Toomey said his party, which controls the White House and Congress, has a responsibility to fix the law's problems, not allow them to continue to grow.

lolson@mcall.com

202-780-9540

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