Sen. Ron Wyden touched on various state and national issues, ranging from the Affordable Care Act to voter registration, during his town hall meeting at Oregon City High School Saturday morning.
But it was a nuclear superpower 5,000 miles away that earned the crowd of 2,000’s most visceral reactions.
“Your constituents want you to hold the Republicans — your counterparts in the Senate — we want you to hold their feet to the fire,” Mary Stewart said when she was given the mic by one of Wyden’s aides. “We want an investigation and we want it now.”
Claps and stomps thundered through the school gymnasium 10 minutes before the meeting’s end when she asked the senator to withhold consent from “business as usual” in D.C. until a full investigation into President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to the foreign nation was complete.
“Things are not okay. This is not okay. This is not business as usual,” Stewart said as Wyden prepped his response.
The senator responded that there was nothing — “and I want to underline nothing,'” he said — more important than “getting to the bottom of this.”
At various points, Wyden said he was open to a “special prosecutor” to investigate Michael Flynn, who resigned as National Security Adviser amid revelations he spoke with Russian officials about sanctions imposed by the U.S. before the inauguration.
It’s a phrase Trump used extensively toward the end of the 2016 campaign when he assured supporters he would further investigate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
Aside from Russia, at least three different attendees asked Wyden about Democratic party leadership and for analysis of Clinton’s loss in November.
“One rule we set out 789 town meetings ago is that these are going to be official town meetings, so I’m not going to get into partisan issues,” the senator said. “By the way, anyone who wants to talk about those, we can do that in the parking lot afterward.”
Much of Wyden’s responses to these questions pivoted to critiques of Trump and his cabinet picks. The senator took jabs at Scott Pruitt, the president’s recently appointed Environmental Protection Agency head, as well as Flynn and several others.
“I’m not letting Betsy DeVos off the hook,” Wyden said of the education department head after one attendee asked about home school regulations.
The senator reminded those gathered of legislation he introduced that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns, a bill he said would prove or disprove Trump’s alleged ties to Russia.
“Tax returns don’t lie,” he said. “Those numbers don’t lie.”
Reporters had two minutes with Wyden after the town hall ended, during which he briefly touched on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s closed-door meeting with FBI Director James Comey on Friday.
“You’re not allowed to say anything about yesterday,” he said.
Sen. Marco Rubio did just that Friday afternoon when he tweeted about confidence that the committee would conduct a “thorough bipartisan investigation” into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alleged influence over the 2016 election.
I am now very confident Senate Intel Comm I serve on will conduct thorough bipartisan investigation of #Putin interference and influence
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 17, 2017
“My own view — and maybe it’s because I’ve been on the end of a lot of 14-1 votes — is we comply with the rules,” Wyden said.
The Oregon City stop was the first of 11 planned town hall meetings Wyden has in the state from Saturday until Feb. 25. After the quick session with reporters, the senator was rushed to the airport to make his second appearance for the day in Gold Beach.
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–Eder Campuzano | 503.221.4344
@edercampuzano
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