Mar 26, 2017 3 min read

Hypocrisy was flowing through Washington, D.C., last week like the Potomac River after a heavy rain.

In just a few days, Republicans seemed to undercut their own longtime criticisms of Democrats about intelligence leaks, health care reform, government spending and even patriotism.

The political theater over the American Health Care Act, the Republican plan to dismantle and replace Obamacare, ramped up last week when last-minute changes were snuck into the bill as House leaders tried to garner enough Republican votes to pass the plan. This came after Republicans spent seven years decrying Obamacare and the process in which Democrats worked in 2009 and 2010 to pass the sweeping health care overhaul.

The biggest criticism levied by Republicans was that Democrats passed Obamacare overnight. That’s not true. There were more than nine months of debates shaping the bill as it passed through committees and was later criticized during constituent town halls. The health care debate helped spark the tea party movement.

Republicans worked for about two months to totally remake health care, and added political favors to sweeten the deal after hitting stumbling blocks within their own caucus. How is that any different than the “Cornhusker Kickback” that Republicans denounced when Democrats wooed former Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska to support the bill to give it a filibuster-proof majority?

It’s clear that changes must be made to Obamacare, but the entire program should not be thrown out. However, more than just two months of debate, coupled with middle-of-the-night amendments, are needed to truly fix what ails health care in America.

And that was just one controversy swirling around D.C. last week.

The Associated Press published a report showing Paul Manafort, who was briefly the chairman of President Trump’s 2016 campaign, worked with a Russian billionaire to “greatly benefit the Putin government” in the mid-2000s. That report, coupled with the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the past presidential campaign, would make for a great Tom Clancy novel.

But what was disturbing is that U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of that committee, inexplicably briefed Trump on the investigation and potential surveillance into the president’s associates. Why would anyone give someone who is potentially the subject of an investigation all of the evidence?

Nunes later apologized, but his actions – along with his work on the Trump transition team – have damaged the committee’s credibility and demonstrate the need for an independent investigation. We must know for sure whether Manafort or other Trump campaign associates colluded with Russian officials or the team that hacked and released email from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Convention.

Leaking information to the president doesn’t instill trust in that process.